by T S McKinney
Turning away, I didn’t bother to answer him. Hell, he wasn’t looking for an answer. Because of his love for Ari, he was furious with me. I couldn’t blame him for that. Ari deserved people in his life that protected and cherished him. I’d always thought I would be that person. I wanted to be that person.
I found him standing in the doorway of my playroom, his beautiful face streaked with tears and his eyes empty. He stared, but probably saw nothing. His hands hung to his side, and I noticed there was a slight tremor in his fingers.
“You lied to me, Eli,” he whispered, still not looking in my direction.
“Ari…”
He held his hand up to stop me. “Don’t bother with whatever you were going to say.” He still wouldn’t look at me, but a sad smile curved his lips. “All that talk about me lying to you, how I’d nearly ruined us both, almost turned you into a pedophile…all those words were just bullshit excuses, weren’t they?” He stepped into the spacious room and walked over to a web of red ropes. His fingers, shaking even more now, reached up and caressed the thick but soft twine. Of all the times I’d fantasized about him in this room, his perfection decorated with my ropes, it had never been anything like this. My heart broke because of the emptiness on his face…in his eyes.
“Ari, I didn’t lie to you…not…not…really.” My words sounded hollow, desperate, and pathetic. “I told you I wasn’t into the same scene as Seth and Baker and that’s true. What I enjoy is…”
He cut me off again. “I don’t care what you enjoy, Eli. I could fucking care less, actually.” He turned to face me. His eyes were no longer empty—they were blazing with fury. “And to think that when your door opened, and a beautiful man walked out, I thought you were cheating on me. Little did I know that you’d just been lying to me from the first moment you walked back into my life.” He laughed softly. “Did you know that I never really lied to you either, Eli? I never told you that I was or wasn’t eighteen years old when we were in college. You assumed it based on the fact I was in college in the first place, and I allowed you to believe whatever you wanted. It sounds familiar, doesn’t it?”
“I love you, Ari. I love you with every portion of my heart and soul. I’ve never lied about my feelings—never once. Please give me a chance to explain and make this right for us.”
“How much of a chance did you give me, Eli?” he asked softly. Slowly, he walked toward me. “I’ll offer you the same opportunity you gave me.” He stood in front of me and his eyes dropped to my lips, giving me false hope. “I wanted you to love me so much that I allowed myself to fall for your lies. Please leave Colorado, Eli. It will be difficult for both of us with you here.”
He reached up and touched my cheek. “Don’t follow me and don’t contact me again. I’ll turn my notice in tomorrow. It was good to see you again.”
*****
Ari
Three weeks had passed since I walked out of Eli’s life…without much of a fight from him. He hadn’t chased after me that day. He hadn’t dropped to his knees to plead for forgiveness. Nothing. He’d just let me go. With every step I’d taken, another piece of my heart had broken off and dissolved into nothingness. How was it so fucking easy for Eli to survive without me in his life when each day we were apart had been nothing short of hell for me?
Because he doesn’t love you as much as you do him, my brain mocked quietly.
Damn but that acknowledgment hurt every time the words whispered inside my head. The day the relationship fiasco exploded in my face, humiliating me in front of Seth, Baker, and some unknown man, my brain had screamed the words at me—screamed so loudly that my head ached from the assault. As each day passed, the painful reminder still echoed inside me, but the voice grew quieter. Strange, the whispered words mocked me even more, caused even more pain.
When I’d planned my disappearing act on the cruise, it had taken Eli exactly zero minutes to figure out what I’d do. He’d tracked me as easily as one of the vampires tracked his mates in the supernatural romance books I read religiously. This time? I could only assume he hadn’t put forth any efforts to find me. It wasn’t like I had many hiding places available to me, so I had to accept he wasn’t looking.
I snorted out loud, causing Havoc to dig her claws into my leg, “Easy girl, put those away. I’ve suffered enough.” She meowed and blinked her eyes at me…then dug her claws in again just because she could. “Why doesn’t Eli want your daddy, Havoc? I’m not that big of a loser, am I?” Another twitch of her claws and this time the nail went straight through my jeans. Yeah, that one broke the skin. Hell, even my cat knew I wasn’t worth much.
“Forget it. You’re right. Oh well, I’ve been alone forever so it’s not like I can’t adjust to it again, right baby? Me and you together forever!” Like an idiot, I grabbed her paw and made her give me a high-five, which resulted in a scratch mark across my palm.
God, this poor cat. I’d rescued her from a shelter as soon as Eli had left me the first time. She’s seen me at my worst and at my…well, she’d seen me at my worst. Obviously, I’d peaked at my worst. This was it—my past, present, and future.
A soft knock on the door caused me to jump in fear and Havoc to disappear from my lap and wiggle her fat rump under the couch to hide. A huge part of me wished it would be Eli, that he’d come to find me and tell me everything was going to be okay. The tiny part of my brain still working assured me it was either Seth or Baker, even if they weren’t scheduled to be back from their assignment for another two weeks. I clicked the security remote and the door swung open. Baker walked in, carrying a load of groceries. He wrinkled his nose when he looked around the living room.
“Why are you frowning? The place is spotless. I suffer from OCD and have germophobia. It’s not like I let myself go like you did when you thought Seth ditched you.” I cocked a brow at him. “I’ve bathed twice a day…unlike the twice a month you went for when you were grieving the supposed loss of your love.” Baker and Seth had gotten a happy ending—why couldn’t I?
After sitting the groceries on the counter, Baker walked over and plopped down on the oversized chair across from me. “I’m frowning because Seth agreed to let you hide out here in exchange for you painting the walls.” He looked around at the unopened paint cans, sitting in the same spots where Seth had left them. Paint brushes were spotless. Nothing. I’d done nothing but pout and mourn the loss of the love of my life.
With a shrug, I answered, “I lied. It’s the fad now. I think I started it.” With a harsh laugh, I added, “I should have patented that shit—I’d be worth millions now.”
“You can’t patent lying, dick head. That shit started back in the Garden of Eden.” He kicked back and propped his feet on the coffee table, probably just to irritate me.
Baker was a slob. I was a neat freak. He loved irritating me with his messiness. I used to think it was funny. Now I didn’t think anything was funny. I shrugged again. “Anyway, there’s no way either you or Seth ever thought I was going to paint the walls. You both knew better, so stop with the lecture.”
“Yeah, we knew better.”
“How did the assignment go?”
“Good. Glad it’s over since I was needed here more than there.” He pointed to the bottom of the couch. “How long is that stupid cat going to be afraid of me?”
“Probably as long as you keep calling her stupid,” I retorted. “Why are you here, Baker? I prefer being by myself right now.”
“Uh…yeah…not gonna happen.” He took his feet off the coffee table, leaned forward, and asked, “So, what’s the plan here, Ari? Are you going to hide out for the remainder of your life? Maybe go into the witness protection plan? Donate your body to science? Help me see what’s going on and what the future looks like.”
“Those are mighty cute words coming from the man that laid up in a bed, whining like a baby, refusing to eat or bathe, pouting like a professional when you thought Seth didn’t want you. Sorry, but everything sounds hollow coming from you.”<
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“Ouch. That was mean, even for you. And for your information, I never went more than a couple of days without a shower. Samantha wouldn’t allow it.” He stood up, grabbed a can of paint and started shaking it. “Seriously, Ari, what’s the plan?”
“Don’t have one. I asked Eli to leave Colorado. Has he done that?”
“Nope. He’s still around.”
No more information. Great. He wanted me to beg. Well, I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.
“Yes, he’s asked about you—called us five times a day asking how you were.” He looked over his shoulder. “Apparently you shut off your old cell and didn’t give anybody the contact information except for me, Seth, and your dad?”
“Yep.”
“Very mature, Ari,” he snipped, knowing the words would piss me off more than anything else he could have said.
“What, Baker?” I snapped. “What do you want me to do? Forget that he lied to me? Forget that when I did the same thing to him, he disappeared out of my life without ever giving me a chance to explain myself? Is that what I’m supposed to do because I’m sorry, I don’t have it in me. Actually, no, Eli doesn’t deserve it.”
“But you did deserve it?” he asked as he poured some paint into the clear plastic thing he’d put into one of the metal trays. I’d wondered what those were for. Wait! What did he say to me?
“What in the hell is that supposed to mean?”
Calmly, he picked up a roller and put it into the paint. “Just that you got mad at Eli for doing the exact same thing that you are doing to him now. Is this some sort of revenge, a way to make him suffer since he made you suffer back in college?”
The paint slid on the walls has he moved the roller up and down. I watched, hating him for stating the obvious. When he’d finished with almost one of the walls, I said, “You aren’t going all the way to the top or bottom of the wall.”
“Ummhumm, you cut in with a paint brush for that part,” he murmured. “So…about the other—is that what you’re doing? Because if it is, punishing the person you love isn’t the best way in the world to let them know your true feelings about them.” He tossed another look over his shoulder. “And, yes, I’m an expert on love, so you need to listen to me.”
“I don’t love him anymore,” I lied. “Not after what he did.”
“Surrre, you don’t,” Baker laughed. “You’ve loved him since day one, Ari. That’s how men like you and I are—we fall, we fall hard, we fall hard and fast, we fall hard and fast and forever. There’s nothing wrong with that. Actually, it’s really cool…except when we do something stupid that ends up hurting us and the people we love.”
“Drop it, Baker,” I begged. “I’m hurting enough without you adding to my torment. I thought we were friends.”
He dropped the paint roller into the tray and sat back down across from me. “We are friends, Ari— that’s why I’m here. You’re hurting. Eli’s hurting. It’s crazy that you’re both hurting and all you have to do is communicate with one another and have a bit of faith in each other. Do you love him, Ari? Tell me if I’ve read the entire situation wrong. If you can honestly tell me I’m wrong, I’ll drop everything and Seth and I will make Eli disappear.”
I gasped in shock and outrage. “You can’t just go around killing people, Baker! What the fuck?” The thoughts of either Seth or Baker trying to lay a hand on Eli made my blood boil. How dare they? First of all, Eli could probably kick both their asses, one hand tied behind his back. Secondly, he was one of our team! “If you even think about laying a hand on him, I’ll make you regret it.”
“Why would you even care? Right now, because of him, you’re having to stay holed up in an old Victorian house that’s probably haunted, pretending that you’re going to make renovations on it. According to the home office, you haven’t even logged into your computer in weeks. Sam is scrambling to make excuses for your behavior. Your father, who already has his hands full with a misbehaving and cocky Jinx, is threatening to quit and come home so he can assure himself with his own eyes that you’re fine. That poor cat is probably horny and would enjoy socializing with other animals. With one word from you, we could end the suffering. Let us get rid of him for you.”
I couldn’t believe the words coming from Baker’s mouth. He wasn’t that kind of person, so I knew he had to be yanking my chain…didn’t he? I mean, the agents in our company did use deadly force from time to time. Would they honestly try to hurt Eli?
“Please tell me that you’re kidding, Baker.”
He shrugged. “It was your father’s idea, not mine.”
I stared at him a full two minutes before he finally burst out laughing, unable to hold his poker face a moment longer. “Of course, we aren’t going to kill him, Ari. That’s stupid. He’ll just go back to wherever he came from.” His eyes softened when he looked at me. “He’s agreed to do that for you. He says it isn’t right that he’s taking you away from the people you love. As a matter of fact, he’s already turned in his notice—he leaves in two weeks.”
What was remaining of my heart shattered. After I’d gotten over my initial fury over Eli’s lie, I’d slowly started to allow myself to listen to reason. Sure, the bad whispers overpowered my hope of things ending well for me. I’d waited and hoped that Eli would reach out to me, maybe even physically force me to come back to him. There’d been some kidnapping dreams that woke me up—cock hard and weeping for Eli. No, I didn’t really want to be kidnapped but I did want Eli to at least put up a token fight for me…for us. He hadn’t, though. He hadn’t and there wasn’t a damn thing left I could do about it. On the ship, I’d given him everything I had.
“Did you hear me, Ari? He’s leaving. Two weeks. If he walks out this time, I’m afraid he won’t have the courage to come back again. Is this how you want to leave things—without either of you even discussing what happened?”
“I’m not the one leaving, Baker. He is. Why don’t you go talk to him and leave me in peace!”
Peace—ha! There would never be any of that again. I loved Eli and as bad as I wished Baker was wrong, he wasn’t; I did love only one man, forever and always.
“Because Seth is talking to him. I’m talking to you. We drew straws. I lost.”
“Bastard,” I hissed, but without much feeling. I knew Baker and Seth both loved me. I guess I knew it—I’d thought Eli loved me, too.
“Let’s negotiate. What’s it gonna take to make you comfortable enough to at least meet him to talk?”
I threw up my hands in frustration. “Oh, I don’t know! Maybe he could show me that he cares instead of allowing me to walk out of his apartment and not even try to find me! Maybe we start there!” I knew I sounded like a brat, but didn’t care.
“He’s already done that. When you go back to your house, you’ll find that he’s sent you a dozen pink roses every day since you pulled your disappearing act. I have no idea why pink and not red, but I assume the man had a reason. He’s also sent your stupid, rabid cat a treat box with each bouquet.” He rubbed his hands together. “What’s your next demand?”
I felt a heated blush stain my cheeks. I knew why he’d chosen pink over red…and it involved pink lace swim trunks. Damn, that was a good effort and then he added treats for Havoc on top of that. Hmmm. If I had any heart left, it might have melted a degree.
“He could have put forth some effort to find me. I know he’s more than capable, yet I’ve been sitting in this dreary house talking to a cat and staring at ugly walls and paint cans. Would that have been too much to ask for, Baker? You’re the self-proclaimed expert. You tell me!” I couldn’t help but be angry since he’d nailed me so perfectly on my first demand. He’d given me hope when I shouldn’t have it—it would only lead to my heart being broken all over again.
He pointed a finger in my direction and said, “I’m glad that you mentioned that one. Eli found you on the first day, which pissed Seth off royally because he wasn’t able to lose him on the drive over when he dropped off t
he paint. Seth made it more than clear that he wasn’t welcome in the house unless Seth gave him permission after talking it over with you. Then we left for our assignment and Seth didn’t call you and refused to take any of Eli’s calls, just to torment him. While we’re on the subject, Seth is enjoying Eli’s heartbreak way too much, but that’s for a side discussion,” he said with a smile. “Here’s what we know, though. You know Seth has cameras all over this place, inside and outside, just waiting for Eli to fuck up. He never did…but he slept in his truck outside your hideaway every damn night.” He popped his knuckles. “I’m on a roll—give me another one.”
I stood up and started pacing. Like the Grinch, my heart had not only grown back, but doubled in size. Eli slept in his truck outside the Victorian…watching over me? Why? Why lie to me and then do all that? It didn’t make sense. I wanted to believe it so badly…so fucking badly.
“Damn, Ari, if it’s about the BDSM shit, I wish you would talk to me or Eli about it. I get it. It isn’t for everybody. Hell, it isn’t for most people, to be perfectly honest. On the other hand, you’ll never know if you like it or hate it if you don’t give it a try. Having said that, I agree that Eli is guilty of a sin of omission by not being completely honest and forthcoming when you asked him about it, but what he does really isn’t considered BDSM. If you would have allowed him to talk to you at his apartment, he could have explained that his kink is Shibari, not what Seth and I engage in. Does it often lead to that? Probably. Does it have to? Definitely not. It is a part of him, Ari. I wish you wouldn’t ask him to give it up before you at least try it, though.”