by T. L Smith
Turning, my body slams into a strong torso, his hands are on me, and he’s pulling me in the direction of the dance floor. Mixed with everyone else, his smell is the first thing I notice, it’s always his scent.
“Syler.”
“Shhh...” he whispers, pulling me close to him.
“What are you doing here?”
I feel his mouth near my neck, hear his intake of breath as he breathes me in.
“I’m choosing you, but someone still has to choose her.”
Looking past him, I see Taj in a heated discussion with another man. Then I see Toska’s wild red hair, and dressed exactly as she was when I saw her leaving for work.
“What are they doing with her?” Her hands are cuffed behind her back, cuffed the way she should have been the first time I met her, and what I can make out are the detectives as they take her away.
“She’s going to get help now.”
Toska’s mouth moves in screams, but no one steps in to help her. Her eyes move around the room frantically until they land on us. Syler isn’t looking in her direction, but she knows it’s him straight away because her back straightens up, and she tries to move our way. I watch her doing nothing, as she’s pulled by the officers. Her top lip spikes up in anger, and I know if I were within hearing distance she’d be cursing me out right now.
As his hands drop down to my ass with the slow motion of our hips rocking, she disappears and is taken outside. Staying where I am, I wait for him to say something, anything. But nothing comes out. I need answers. He can’t expect me to say nothing. As I go to pull away from him, he pulls me back, so our bodies are flush.
“Jaya, Syler,” Taj says from behind us.
Syler lets me pull away this time, but keeps a hand on my waist as I turn to face Taj. He eyes Syler.
“Nice move with that one. I must say I didn’t expect it.” He sounds impressed.
“You think I’d let you kill her?”
Taj laughs and shakes his head, his fingers wiping at his jaw before he drops them, staring him down. “No. I guess I didn’t.” Taj looks to me. “I just fig
ured you’ve woken up.” Taj’s eyes go back to Syler.
“It wasn’t a matter of waking, Taj, it was a matter of it not being your place.”
He smirks like he wants to laugh, then shakes his head. “Goodbye, Jaya,” Taj says, then walks away leaving us standing in the middle of the dance floor.
“He wants to fuck you again,” Syler says more seriously than I’ve ever seen him be with me before.
I pull away from him, trying to put distance between us. “That doesn’t matter. It’s who I want to fuck that counts.” I cross my arms over my chest. “What did you do with Toska? Tell me, Syler.”
The music, all of a sudden, seems to become louder. He grabs my hand, intertwining our fingers, then starts walking, pulling me with him as he goes. We step to the front, past the bouncers. Syler yanks me around the side of the building, slams my back into the wall, then traps me with his hands, one on either side my head.
“You really want to know? You want to know how I chose you. How I’ve been choosing you. Is that what you want, Mouse?” His words shock me, my eyes go large as my palms stick to the wall while I take fast breaths.
“If I bought bullshit I’d be buying yours right now. Unfortunately, I’m all out of cash and not buying today.”
He laughs at my words, his head drops back, his hands staying where they are around my face. His neck, it’s in clear view, and I think about all those times I’d kiss that neck. The feelings flush through me, and I want to do it again. Right now.
“Are you telling me within twenty-four hours your body has gotten over me? That if I touched you right now you wouldn’t succumb to my every will.” His hand moves and drops, sliding down until he reaches between my legs, cupping my pussy over my jeans. He presses hard, putting pressure, making my clit throb at his touch.
“My body may be stupid, but my mind knows better.”
He shakes his head. “I don’t think it does. You should have left, several times... yet, here you are as always, right where you belong.”
“You’re acid and acid burns. I want something alkaline, maybe milk. I want anything but damn acid.”
He gets my reference, he always does.
“But the burn will be imprinted on you. You’ll never forget me, Mouse.”
Turning my head, I stare down at the ground. “What did you do to your sister?”
“I traded her for you. No, that doesn’t sound right. Oh... actually, it is.”
My eyes snap back up. “Trade?”
He nods his head. “Your father, he came to my house.”
My eyebrows squeeze together tightly, his words don’t sound right.
“He suggested, in order to protect you, I should turn her in.”
My mouth drops open, and he leans in and kisses my lips, taking advantage of my moment of shock. Stealing my mouth as if it was his to take. His taste is addictive, his mouth is demanding, his bite lethal.
A truly toxic combination, which is my downfall.
Because I kiss him back.
Lips bruising, tongues dancing, we can’t seem to get enough of each other.
Then I take that much-needed breath. The one that pulls oxygen back into my brain, and I realize I’m falling back into that pattern, that one where we’re unhealthy for each other. The one where we’re not right. And I pull away, breaking our kiss.
Looking up at him, his lips are swollen, his perfect jaw churning as he tries to work out why I pulled away. My fingers touch my bruised lips, the place only reserved for him.
Taj was a mistake, I know that now. I thought he was what I needed to get over Syler. But once you’re burnt by acid, it’s hard to recover. It makes it impossible to get back to that neutral place, the one where everything is just basic and simple. Instead, that acid becomes imprinted on you, even when you attempt to remove it. It becomes a stain or a scar, eating away at you until it’s all you know and all you want.
“Mouse...”
I take his moment of silence, and slip myself out from his grasp while putting much-needed distance between us.
“You’ll end up hating me, I’ll end up resenting you...” I shake my head and step back again.
“I wouldn’t.”
“You would! You had to be forced into it. It took me almost dying more than once for you to choose me. That isn’t healthy, none of this is. We aren’t good for each other. We’ll keep on burning until there’s nothing left.” Stepping back again, I’m not clear where my car is, but I know it’s not far from here.
“We need to stop, Mouse. I’m ceasing the ellipses. No more pauses or question marks for me. Now it will just be full stops.”
I want to smile at his editor’s metaphor.
I want to ravish in it.
I know better, though.
“I’m full stopping it, Wolf! Before I fall deeper down a rabbit hole where I cannot escape.”
“I’ll chase you, Mouse, right down that rabbit hole.”
Turning, so I’m walking away, I look back only once.
“I hope you catch me, I really do. But this time you may not.”
Once I reach my car, I open the door and slide in and do my best not to look back as I drive off.
Chapter 27
Welcome Home or Not
Dad’s shaking his head when I pull up to our house in my rental car. When he last saw me, he thought I was getting on a plane, but I never did. Instead, I’m here trying to cover my pain with a fake smile as I walk up the steps to him.
“Jaya, Jaya. You feel the burn, don’t you? The acid has burned right to your bones. Jaya, Jaya, do you hear me?” Betty's voice resounds from next door as she yells out to me.
I offer her a wave while staring up at my father.
“This doesn’t look like you left on a plane to me, Jaya.”
I shrug my shoulders. “I figured, I can start over anywhere. Might as we
ll give it a go by getting to know my father better.”
His body visibly drops, he was obviously tense. “I wish that was the only reason, but I’m also happy to hear your words.” He takes my bag from my hand, and I follow him inside.
Nothing has changed, not that I expected it to. I’m actually surprised he’s even home.
“You met Syler?” I ask him after shutting the front door. He places my bag on the floor and walks to the kitchen, grabbing a beer and offering me one, then he leans on the counter.
“I did.”
“And?”
“He’s protective of you, even if I don’t approve. But what I can see from a mile away is love.” He assesses me, waiting for a response.
“We aren’t in love,” I say, shaking my head and sitting on the bar stool across from him.
He raises his eyebrow. “I may be a grumpy old man, Jaya, but I know love when I see it. Mine was epic, and you have that, too.”
“You’ve never wanted to love anyone else? Or even try?” I ask him.
We’ve never talked like this. We never even used to talk at all, so this is all brand new to me. He looks down at his hands that are grasping a firm hold on his beer bottle.
“I tried, once. It was awful. Your mother’s love and I... well, it can’t be duplicated or replicated.”
“You never want that again... the company of someone else?”
He looks up at me. “She was it. She was mine for over fifteen marvelous years. I wouldn’t trade a single breath for it.”
“Do you regret me?” I avert my eyes when I ask him. His answer will hurt too much, and he won’t see my reaction to his answer.
“I’m not going to lie, Jaya, kids weren’t in my plan. But they were always on hers. The minute I held you, though, I knew I’d love you as much as I loved her, even if I didn’t show it. It was the pain after she left me. You were her, yet you were me as well. A mixture of both. But you weren’t as closed off as I was. I didn’t want to fuck that up and figured the best way to not ruin you, was to not be around to burden you with my issues.”
“You ignored me.”
“I’m sorry.” And that’s all it takes for me to get hit with a truckload of emotions I didn’t know was coming. Tears well up in my eyes. My heart hurts, but in a good way as well. “I love you, Jaya, even if I am a crap father. I love you with everything that I am, and wouldn’t trade you for my last breath.”
“Thank you.”
“Have you told him, that you love him?”
Wiping the tears from my eyes, I nod my head. “Yes, I didn’t want to.” I don’t want to tell my father that he pulls it from me when we fuck, in the form of punishment. Because that’s what it feels like, as if he takes my heart and squeezes all the information he wants out of it, leaving me feeling empty afterward. Syler manages to get everything he needs from me, but gives me little in return.
Dad walks around the bench, kisses the top of my head, then walks off to his room. Getting up, I do the same, making sure I lock my window and pull the curtain shut before I pass out on my bed, trying to keep out any thoughts of acid eating away at me.
“YOU LOOK...” MY FATHER pauses and thinks for a second, “... refreshed.” Dad’s voice sounds amused as I smile at him while grabbing the juice from the fridge.
“I’m going to her hearing today. Life is okay at the moment.”
“It’s better than okay, baby.” He kisses my head again as he walks out of the kitchen.
After drinking my juice and grabbing a bite to eat, I head back to my bedroom to get dressed. Pulling my pantsuit on, I slide on some heels and grab my cell, not knowing what I should be expected from today. But knowing I must go to find out.
Syler arrives the moment I sit down. I see him straight away as he takes a seat behind her and she sits next to who I presume is her lawyer. My seat is toward the back, and I wait to listen to what happens. Everyone stands like they do in the movies then sits when the judge walks into the room. They read out all her charges, the main ones being the killings from the second murder. The one from the pool. Her lawyer is pleading insanity, and the charge requires a doctor’s evidence for this. Once everything is over, she’s taken away, and everybody gets up to leave.
“Mouse.” He slides in sitting next to me, his sister now fully gone from our view.
“You’ll miss her,” I say to him.
“It’s time you know... I’ve been covering for her... for far too long. It needed to come to a stop.”
I nod my head in understanding, it needed to stop a very long time ago. “Won’t you miss it? You love that hatchet?”
He was good, very good with his hatchet.
“I’ll save it for those that try to steal you away.” He half smirks looking at the front of the courtroom, staring at nothing as I watch him.
“I’m not yours to be stolen from.”
“Think again.”
I shake my head, but can’t help but smile. “I think he likes you, my father.”
“Of course he does, he knows I love you.”
My hands clutch the seat I’m sitting on. My mouth drops open, and he doesn’t say another thing. He stands and doesn’t look back as he walks out of the room, leaving me sitting there replaying his words over and over again in my head.
He could love me... maybe.
It’s words I never thought would come from his mouth. Not Syler Hunter. The man who doesn’t love anything, and has always warned me to not love him. But he craved those words leaving my mouth as well. It was a sick, fucked up thing we had, and it lasted long years. I was content with those years, thinking that I was happy with what I got from him, and that it was enough. I was lying to myself and worst of all, to him. Making him believe that I was happy enough to stay with him and not love him, just take and take what we had to give with our bodies instead.
Leaving that courthouse and arriving home seems to be a blur, one that I don’t quite understand but try to wrap my head around. My cell rings. The number is private, and I almost don’t answer it. I want to ignore it, but decide against it.
“Hello.”
“I didn’t think you would answer.”
“Toska.”
“Yes. You were my one and only call. I’m happy you answered.”
“Are you? Or did you call to spite me?”
“A bit of both, but nevertheless I’m happy you answered. I have a feeling soon I won’t be able to talk to anyone.”
“I would hope not.”
She laughs, but it’s dry. Her voice isn’t so chipper anymore either. I sit down on the front steps of my house, my head hanging low as I wait for what she wants to say. Why she called me and not her brother.
“You hate me... and rightfully so. I hate me...” she pauses, and we both remain quiet, waiting. “The words left his mouth, but I never believed them. He picked you... that’s what he said. I think I knew from the moment you met that he’d pick you eventually. I was just too blind to see it because I figured you’d pick me... that somehow in my head, you loved me and just used him.”
“Not once did I mean to give you that impression, Toska.”
“You see, in my head you did. Each time you chose to stay after it all... each time you saw something... you were telling me you loved me. Each and every time, Jaya.”
“I love your brother.”
“I know, trust me, I know. And he loves you. And just like you, he doesn’t like that word and can’t comprehend it. He turned his own sister in, Jaya. The same person he’s protected all our lives. Do you understand that?”
“One minute.” I hear someone say in the background.
“You don’t know what love is, Toska. Do you think I’m going to listen to you?”
“Just don’t give him an ultimatum, please let me see him again.”
“I won’t keep him from you.”
“Thank you, and Jaya... teach him how to love. Teach each other. I might have been the bad apple, and if I wasn’t locked up, I probably wou
ld still try to kill you. Because he was mine first, just like you.” Then my cell goes silent, and I’m left with it in my hand and a confused as fuck mind.
Chapter 28
Have to Choose
Syler comes at night, exactly three nights after I last saw him in the courtroom. My window is open, and he climbs straight through it. He stands, his eyes searching for me and stopping when they reach my eyes watching him from my bed. He thought I’d be asleep, and I usually am when he sneaks in. Not tonight.
“Wolf...”
His lip quirks up, but he doesn’t make a move to step closer to me. “Mouse...”
Sitting up from my position on my bed, the sheet that was covering me drops revealing only a white shirt that I sleep in, his shirt.
“Your sister called me.”
His eyes leave my body to find my face. “I know, she told me.”
“Are you regretting what you did, Syler?”
He still doesn’t make a move to come closer. I stay where I am, not trusting myself either.
“If I don’t get what I want. Maybe.”
“And what is it that you want?” I ask him, knowing full well the answer, but wanting to hear it from his lips.
“You know what it is I want, but that’s not the reason I’m here. I want to know what it is you want, Mouse.”
No one has ever asked me that before with such impact. Sure, I’ve been asked if I want to go here or there, or what food I want, but never something so large that affects me, and most of all, my heart.
What do I want?
Do I even know?
When I glance back up at him, he’s waiting for my answer. It sits on the top of my tongue but doesn’t want to budge out of my mouth.
“Mouse...”
“I want to be loved, and I want it to be normal.”
“Normal...” He tastes the word on his tongue. “We aren’t normal, though, Mouse.”
