It’s gone. Everything. She didn’t want to think about what she’d lost. She shook her head and tried to push the unwanted thought away, but it wouldn’t go. My money. Eve bit down on the inside of her lip, wanting to feel the pain it would elicit. Only that didn’t work. The pain of loss overwhelmed the numbing feeling that had been clinging to her pores. She hadn’t thought about the money much, not really, because Gage had taken that pain away with his thick cock inside her body, even with the brush of his hand in hers as they walked. “I got that money for you.” A truth she had never even admitted to herself. She had seen the love in his eyes after she spoke those words. Love? A bubble of laughter escaped her parted lips this time. He doesn’t love you! her subconscious shouted, making her wince. The inner voice was right of course. The proof had been there in his arms when he embraced Sally.
She couldn’t escape the past. Eve knew this. She had known it all along, yet for a moment—only for one damned moment—had she entertained the possibility that things really could be different between them. For the second time in her twenty years, had she entertained hopes of a future that wasn’t laid out on a sad lonely road. And for the second time, Gage and Sally had dashed them away, proving that reality was more than just a bitch, but a spiteful one.
Eve’s arms seemed to move of their own accord pouring the shampoo into her palm. If she had been in a normal frame of mind, she would have marveled at all that the place had to offer. It was like stepping back into the real world, albeit, a little bit more run down than the before, but they seemed to have everything. The shampoo wasn’t in a fancy plastic bottle with a name brand on it, but in a mason jar, apparently homemade by someone in Eden. She held her hand up to her nose and inhaled. The fresh scent of strawberries filling her nose. The image of Olive jumped to her mind and the time they had come across a blueberry patch, not long after leaving Sunder after the Crave hit. They had thought the huge field of fruit was a gift from heaven, or at least Olive had. They’d ate and ate, stuffing their starving bodies full of the bountiful fruit until they were both sick. Eve had vomited until she had nothing left in her stomach and Olive had done the same. Just thinking about it made Eve’s stomach bubble in the most unpleasant way.
She rubbed the shampoo into her hair. And that was the other bomb that had been dropped on her only minutes after getting into the walls of the Eden. Her sister wasn’t there. She’d asked Noah, and he told her he had never heard of anyone of that name. He asked the others who had gathered at their arrival, and all of them shook their heads. Her sister had never been to the town of Eden. The reality of this was like a knife to the heart. She’d had more hope for that than she realized. She had been sure she would come to the town and find her sister alive and well.
Eve had just finished washing her body when the door to the bathroom slammed open. Eve jumped, blindly groping at her back for her Craftsman. For the second time that day, she came up empty handed. Her heart jumped into her throat and panic tingled across her body. Jenks. She was sure of it. They breached the walls and now they’re here. Figures. Only it wasn’t a tangle of rotting limbs that flung open the white sheet that acted as a shower curtain. Gage.
She stared up into his handsome face towering over her, wearing only faded blue sweat pants. His face was clean-shaven and his short hair was even shorter, shaved closed to head. His gray eyes widened as his gaze roamed over her body. She realized she was naked, but she couldn’t move, not under his scrutiny in the bright florescent light of the bathroom. Heat flooded the tender flesh between her legs when his tongue swiped over his lower lip, as if he was aching for a taste. His muscular chest heaved with great breaths, causing his muscles to flex under his dark skin. He looked like a hungry man.
He took a step toward her, his big body seeming to envelop the entire shower stall. This is what I want. She couldn’t deny the pull he had on her. He could walk into a room and her body would engulf in flames. She sucked in a breath, her nostrils filling with his masculine scent. He reached for her. And that’s when it hit her. The memory of the past of standing in the hallway on the day her whole world fell apart, overlaid with what happened today.
Eve jerked back and pushed past him, trying hard not to focus on the way the satin covered steel of his skin brushed against her shoulder as she passed. He let her go, not trying to stop her.
“Do you need something?” She kept her back to him while she examined the clothes she’d been given. They were a little big, but she was happy with them.
“Here. You didn’t dry off.”
Eve glanced over her shoulder at the frayed blue towel he held out. She’d completely forgotten about that step, more than used to being wet when she redressed herself. The luxury of a towel wasn’t something worth making room for in the limited things she carried. She snatched it out of his hand and ran it over her body. She gave him her back again, but knew he was watching. She could feel his eyes on her skin, only heating her body more, readying for him. No! She jerked her clothes on desperate to dampen her flaming emotions.
“It’s not what you think, you know.”
Eve let out a pent up breath and turned around once she had the white t-shirt over her head. The fabric felt strange against her skin. “What?”
“With Sally.”
The sound of that bitch’s name on his lips made Eve’s skin prickle with anger. “That’s why you came here? To tell me that?”
He ran a hand over his head. He’s nervous? “Yes.”
“Well, thanks. You can go now.”
A muscle ticked in his jaw. “That’s all you’re going to say?”
“What did you expect me to say?” She tried to hide her shock at his question.
He shrugged. “I thought you would yell at me. That’s what you usually do when you’re pissed.”
She gave a harsh laugh. “Why would I be pissed at you?”
Gage narrowed his eyes and took a step toward her. “Stop acting like this.”
“Like what?” She mirrored him, taking a step back, her legs nearly bumped into the twin the bed in her small room.
“Like you don’t give a shit about me.”
His words were like a slap in the face. “Excuse me? When did I ever say I cared about you?”
He shook his head. “So, what we did this morning, it meant nothing to you?”
Unbidden the scene jumped into her mind. His rough hands hot against her skin, his mouth delivering expert kisses as he pressed her body into the muddy ground. She shook her head hard, wanting to forget. “So we had sex.” She shook her hands to add to the sarcasm in her voice. “People do that all the time and it means nothing. Meaningless sex is the best way to go.” The lie tasted bad on her tongue, but she wouldn’t tell him the truth. She wouldn’t tell him how the idea of him with Sally, with any woman, was eating at her very soul.
“You’ve had other meaningless sex?” He snapped the words like a whip, anger lacing each one.
“What difference does it make?” She hadn’t, but she wouldn’t tell him that. She didn’t want to get off on the idea that he had been her one and only, even after all these years.
“Have you been with other men?” He took another step forward, clenching his fists.
She frowned and took another step back. “That’s none of your business.” She crossed her arms over her chest, hoping she looked stronger than she felt. His thick muscles seemed to bulge even larger under his burnished skin.
“Fine. It isn’t.” He let out a deep breath. “But don’t push me away like this.”
“I’m not.”
“Yes, you are.” The certainty in his voice made her blood boil. Who was he to say what she was doing…even if he was right?
“Who said anything about that? Why would I try to push you away when you mean nothing to me?” Gage’s face fell for a moment before he covered it with a mask of anger.
“You even said so yourself, that you got that money for me and don’t even try to deny it. I heard you with my own two
ears.” He took another step, backing Eve into the light blue wall.
Shit. Part of her had hoped he would forget. She didn’t like that he had something to hold over her. “You actually believed me?” She covered her mouth with one hand, acting like she was trying to hide a bubble of laughter, when she was actually trying to bite back the tears that threatened to spill onto her cheeks. How does he do this to me? How does he get me in knots like this? Because you love him.
“You can’t fake that kind of emotion, Eve. I saw it there in your eyes when you said the words.” His face was only inches from hers. He was breathing hard, his chest rising and falling rapidly.
He was too close. She couldn’t think with his body standing only inches away. Flesh that she had clung to only hours before. She pressed her hands against his rippling chest and pushed wanting him away from her before she did something stupid like cling to him and cry into his shoulder. The tears threatened to spill, growing hotter against the back of her eyelids by the second. Twice in one day? Wow. I’m a winner.
“Look at me, Eve.” A hot hand brushed against her neck while another buried in her hair. She realized that she had squeezed her eyes shut.
A strange emotion danced in his gray irises. An emotion she saw only one other time, when he stood there in the hallway, right before he spoke the words that tore her heart apart. She wanted to wretch herself away, to run and hide from the pain, but she couldn’t move.
“I love you, Eve Mercy Wicker.”
The words were like perfect harmony as they flowed through her ears in and into her head. Those words were ones that could move mountains and shatter worlds. Her heart soared in her chest. He’d said them outside of the throws of passion, unlike before. This is real. They were what she had longed to hear for years, since the first day of Physics, when he told her how many words a number two pencil could write. Her feelings were finally reflected back. She wanted to shout, to jump with joy. To kiss his lush lips and say the words back. They threatened to spill over her tongue. “This girl? I don’t even know her name.” The memory splattered across her happiness like a gallon of jenk blood, distorting everything.
Eve jerked backward, slamming her head against the wall behind her. “You’re a joke.” She speared the words at him, desperate to destroy him with them.
A bitter smile tugged at the corner of his lips. “You love me too. I know you do.”
“Fuck you!” She tried to twist away, but his grip tightened on her hair.
“Tell me the truth, Eve. Don’t avoid it.”
“I don’t.” She focused her gaze at the center of his chest, unable to look him in the eye.
“Look me in the eye and tell me that,” he growled, smashing her hard against the wall. She welcomed the feel of him pressed against her, like the weak woman she was. She didn’t look at him though, couldn’t bear to, for fear that she will crumble at his feet. “Look at me!” His words sounded more animal than human, tearing from his chest with a roar. She bit down on her cheeks and kept her gaze focused on his chest. “That’s what I thought.” The smugness in his voice jerked her from her internal war. How dare he think that he can manipulate me and tell what I feel.
Bitter anger sucked her down into its wallowing hole. “I don’t love you, Gage. There. Are you happy?” she shouted, and watched his face twist in pain. Good. He deserves to hurt, just like I do. “Is that what you wanted to hear? Because it’s the fucking truth. I don’t love you. I hate you!” He released his grip on her hair and shuffled his feet backward as if she had actually wounded him. She took a step forward. “Now get out!”
Gage nodded his head, not even bothering to hide the pain on his face. A wave of regret washed over her as she watched him retreat. She wanted to retract the words, to fall at his feet and tell him how sorry she was.
“I get it.” The choked sound of his voice was catatonically different from the animal moments before. He stopped by the door, his body still facing hers and dug into his pocket, retracting something small. He set it on the small table by the exit of her room. “Goodbye, Eve.”
The slam of the door made her flinch, her gaze focused on the empty wall of her room, in disbelief that the last few minutes had happened at all. Her feet carried her to the small wooden table. The gray sparkling jewel that sat in the center. A diamond from the chandelier. The heat that had been building behind her eyes spilled over onto her cheeks and her knees met the tile floor.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Time passed slower than it ever had for Gage. He had come back to his life within the walls of Eden to find the place bigger and even more advanced than when he’d left over a year ago. Someone had managed to rewire the solar panels to provide power for the entire town, which was over a mile wide now. Water was actually running in almost half of the buildings. The old courthouse stood as the center of their little community and the grass was greener than he’d ever seen it. The people looked alive again, not the shells of their former selves like they used to be. They moved around with happiness on their faces. Children ran and played in the streets surrounding the center of town, laughing. Eden was a new beginning for them, yet it had become a sadness of the past for him.
“Why the long face my man?” Gage met Noah’s blue eyes as he sat next to him on the old wooden bench. He shook his head at his old friend, not wanting to talk about it. Under normal circumstances, he had never sat on one of these benches, never had the time to just sit around, but now…now he was sitting on the rough wooden bench in front of the courthouse, praying that he could catch a glimpse of Eve as she passed by on the street. “Looking for her, huh?”
“What?” Gage played dumb. Four days had passed since he’d left Eve in her room. Four days since she told him that she didn’t love him. He had been so sure that she did. The look in her eyes…it was love. It had to be, but there was no mistaking the hate there when she spat the words at him, ripping him to shreds right before her eyes after he’d poured his heart out to her. I told her I loved her. He ran a hand over his head. The first time I say it to anyone and she tells me that she hates me. Go figure.
“Why don’t you just go talk to her?”
Gage let out an exasperated sigh. “I already tried that.” He didn’t know if he could do it again. If he could stand before her and hear her tell him just how much she didn’t love him.
Noah snorted. “Try again.”
“Look, you don’t get it.”
Noah smiled and leaned back against the bench into a relaxing pose. “I know you’ve loved that girl since high school.”
Gage frowned. “What? How did—”
“Come on, Gage. She was all you could think about our senior year. You didn’t have to tell me, for me to know. I might have been an idiot back then, but you’re my best friend. I didn’t miss all of those looks of longing you threw her way, even when she was wearing those hideous floor length skirts.”
Gage smiled. Those skirts and long sleeve shirts hadn’t hid her beauty. He’d seen something in her on that first day of his senior year that changed him as a person. He could see the purity on her face. The honesty in her soul. It had given him a case of nervousness that was nearly impossible for him to shake. He had rambled something a pencil and she had smiled at him. The corners of her mouth quirking to reveal her straight white teeth and he’d been lost. Utterly lost. She changed everything for him in the space of a few moments. I have to have her. Make her mine. The words were still as fresh in his mind now as they had been back then.
Part of him had always known that he loved her, but he’d fought it for years, even over the last few days he’d fought it. He didn’t want to give in to what was there, the reality of his feelings were like a death blow, staggering…and he had been afraid. Fucking afraid. Like a kid was of the dark. To admit his feelings made them real, made him vulnerable.
“I heard you talked to Sally. She’s not taking it so hot, huh?”
Gage sighed. His conversation with Sally had gone about as well the
one he’d had with Eve. “She just doesn’t get it.”
“You can say that again. I spent an hour Gage, a fucking hour, trying to calm her down. She was crying hysterically, you know.”
Gage gave Noah a droll look. “Trust me, I know.” Sally had come to him that same night after he’d had the blowout with Eve. She’d waltzed into his room like she owned the place wearing nothing but a coat.
“Did you have to call her a clingy ass bitch, though? I’m pretty sure she will never get over that.”
Gage snorted. “I probably shouldn’t have…but she just didn’t get it. I’ve been trying since high school to get her out of my life.”
“It’s all good man. I’m just giving you a hard time. She deserved that. After all the shit she’s done.”
Gage’s mind flashed back to the cafeteria when Sally had tricked Eve into falling down in front of the whole school. His fists clenched in anger. I should have done something. Said something. He hadn’t though. He’d just let it all go. He’d even dated Sally after that. What the hell was I thinking?
“So you’re not going to do anything? Just going to let her go?” Noah’s words cut through the hot summer air.
“Are you seriously trying to give me love advice?”
Noah smiled. Noah was the last person to go to for advice like that. He was the kind of guy who had a different woman in his bed as often as he could. “For once…I actually am.” Gage didn’t say anything. Just stared at the buildings in front of him. The wash shop where everyone went to do their laundry was in the old June Marie’s ice cream parlor he’d loved as a kid. The June Marie’s sign was still there, an ice cream cone centered with the name around it only the letters had peeled off over the years until it said Une Mare. Eventually the letters would be completely gone and the sign would be just like any other white eight by ten square of plastic. Blank.
Alive (The Crave) Page 22
