“You also told me you wouldn’t touch me.” Accepting that rational argument, I do the only thing I can and remain silent. There’s no counter to it. No logical rebuff. She’s correct. I did. And I have failed at honouring that statement to myself.
“If it’s not real, why no pills?” she asks, quietly.
I flick the cigarette and lean back, throwing my irrational thoughts with it. “Maybe I hoped it was for a while. It isn’t, though.” And no amount of me playing, enjoying, or taunting myself with more of it will make it any more possible than it was before we arrived.
I stand and get dressed, still watching her body as it tries to find energy neither of us have anymore. Attractive. No sinister left there anymore. She’s drained of it. Nothing but flesh and bones that labour in their fatigue.
“You should eat. Sleep,” I mutter, walking to her.
She flinches at my approach, amusing me, and then gives up bothering with that thought of trying to avoid me. She needn’t flinch, anyway. I’ve got no more left to give for now. I’m as bone tired as she is. Exhausted by the sordid actives I’ve put my mind through, and drained of the constant fight I’m trying to dampen down inside of me. Maybe we should both sleep until we wake. We’ll leave then. Head home to our existences and find solitude again.
The belt I used gets picked up from the floor and threaded back into place, and I search for her dress amongst the debris of toys discarded around us until I find it off to the side. I pick it up and instantly smell the scent of her all over it, the same scent that permeates the room around us now. Potent. Seductive and acutely compelling. It’s enough for me to watch her again, mind casting images of her at home with me, in my bed with me. Breakfast. Dinners out. Walks around parks like other people do.
I turn away from her and those thoughts, trying to ignore the image of sitting somewhere and discussing life with her, opening doors and telling the truths I have to tell.
“Gray?”
“What,” I snap, frustration etching in, as I turn to look at her.
She’s standing up with me, her hand hovering in the air as if she was about to touch me and all her battered skin on display for me.
“It doesn’t matter,” she says, taking the dress from me instead and moving away into the shadows. “There’s nothing else to talk about. You’ve made your point.”
Good. I needed to. She needed to hear it and I needed to make sure she did, regardless of my own mind’s confusion. This is all it was. One dance.
And it is all it will ever be.
Chapter 17
Hannah
I hiss at the feel of the water pelting down on me, exhausted by the sense of near shrapnel pummelling me and try to ignore the fact that he’s left me alone here. He carried me here under my protest, put me on the bed, looked at me for a while in my beleaguered state, and then walked out of the room with no other words.
My fingers tap the screen, unable to find sense in that. We were together. Two. Seamless. Almost bolted together in whatever that became in that dark room with its dark corners and dark sentiment. And then – distance. I lost him.
Separation.
Everything’s so painful now, as if the time between that room and this has given new meaning to the battering and bruising. Blood leaks down my skin, red droplets of it forming a trail of crimson water swirling away into the drains. I stare at it, remembering the feeling of him inside my ass, the pain that came with that, and then the pain that came after that.
An arm suddenly reaches in and pulls me out of the shower, gently wrapping me into a towel and easing me down onto the side of the large, ornate tub.
“No showers. Stay there,” he says, switching off the spray.
I frown at him and watch as he begins running a bath, his fingers swishing the water about and adding various things from the cupboards. I don’t know why he’s bothering with care of any sort. He doesn’t care. It’s not real here, as he said. And now the drugs aren’t swimming about in me, clouding and confusing me, I know that, too. We fucked. He took and I gave. Repeatedly. Bitterly. Just as I asked him for. Nothing more, no matter how my heart is beginning to ache at that thought.
It’s confusing.
All of it.
Bubbles start forming in the water, heavenly smells drifting around the room to adjust my mind’s deflated state that’s come from nowhere. Lemons and lavender, fresh morning flowers and dew. So steamy and hot, more and more bubbles erupting on the surface. The towel gets taken from my shoulders and abandoned to the floor, my still shivering body lifted and gently lowered into the depths of loose heat.
He moves away from me to sit in a chair, eyes watching me carefully as I slip further into the bubbles and let them soothe my throbbing limbs and tattered skin.
“You don’t have to stay,” I whisper.
“I do. I’m possessive like that. And I like looking at you.”
Possessive? He’s just told me I mean nothing to him other than this place, and now he talks of possessive? I close my eyes to his devoid stare, part infuriated by the look of it if it means so little, and sink further until I’m under the water and away from him. Perhaps I’ll stay here. Drown for a while and enjoy it like I did before. Maybe then I can find myself again rather than be lost in this haze that happens whenever he’s near me.
When I eventually break the surface to start washing, he’s nowhere to be seen. I can hear him, though. He’s out in the bedroom, talking to someone quietly. The main door closes to the room softly, as I finish washing my bruised skin, and I watch him come back into the room, a towel wrapped around his waist this time.
“Better?” he asks, as he sits in the chair again.
I nod, not knowing how to answer if I’m better or not. I feel less pained, but that doesn’t seem to make anything better at all. I rise from the water with this enduring sense of loss, not understanding why it feels so prevalent in my mind. I knew. I did. He told me and I knew it would be no more than this one night - these few nights while we were here. Enjoy myself, he said. Get lost in it, but remember who you are. And now I’ve found another me here. I have. I’ve found her, and I’ve lived her and yet now because of his words about leaving I feel like I’m broken again.
He’s by my side suddenly, another large, clean towel held up for me to climb into. He wraps it around me and lifts me from the bath, our eyes finding each other because of the close proximity. Minutes. Hours. However long in his arms. I don’t know here anymore. Time seems irrelevant. Endless and yet limited because of this man in front of me. And he’s frowning again. I don’t like it. Never have. Where’s his smile gone? The dirty one or the happy one. Either or. Just the one that makes me feel warm and contented.
My hand brushes his jaw, fingers trembling over his lips as I think of them on me, of him inside me. There was something other than just here. There is something other than here. It’s real and alive in us, connecting us whether he says it is or not.
“Go and eat something. I’ll be there in a minute,” he says, putting me on the floor and breaking the moment.
The door closes behind me, the sound of a lock being engaged following it, and I look into the room to find an array of platters of food on the large table by the window. Flowers fill a large vase in the centre of it, bright pink and purple lavender sprigs entwined with roses and freesias. I can smell them everywhere. Deep scented and rendering the old wood of this room inadequate in comparison.
Slow feet inch me towards the table, my own body feeling as lacklustre as the wood, and I approach the window to gaze out into the desolate view. It’s still the same. Cold and barren, austerely beautiful and sombre in its own way. It feels like me again. Without care.
Just like I should be.
I rest my swollen ass on the table and keep looking out into the air, watching as low light flicks gracefully on the tops of the mountains. Maybe morning’s breaking, or night is descending. Who knows here. I don’t suppose it matters really. We’re far away. Hidden in thes
e mountains around us. I still don’t even know where here is. We could be anywhere.
The sound of him coming out of the bathroom makes me turn to look at him. He’s rubbing his dark hair, towelling it back and forth as if cleansing himself of my hands. I can see my nails on him, though. Scratches and handprints, as if I was clawing at him, pulling him closer or making him back away.
“Where are we?” I ask.
He walks to the table and picks up a croissant, chewing carefully as he looks at me. “Why?”
I shrug and stand, getting myself closer to the window and away from him. It’s safer away from him, safer for my thoughts. Safer for my sanity. “I’d just like to know.”
“I can’t tell you that,” he replies, dismissively. “Eat some food, Hannah.”
“Why not?”
“Because Malachi hasn’t invited you here of your own accord. If he does, he’ll let you know where we are.”
“Why did you get invited?”
He pulls out a chair for me and motions for me to sit in it, no answer to the question as he carries on eating. That’s not good enough for me. I stay at the window, at least wanting some truths before I go. Maybe we’re not two, and we’re certainly not a couple, but something other than whatever this is might help me acknowledge that – create space and bring us back to just friends again. If we ever were. “Why, Gray?”
I don’t know what the stare at me over his food means, but it’s not cruel anymore. It’s not even his usual look of flat and disinterested. It could be intrigue, or irritation because I’m pressing him for something he’s not willing to discuss.
He eventually looks back at his food, picking up a bottle of wine and pouring it into two glasses. “Sit and eat and I’ll tell you.”
I move slowly to sit, at least I'll be comfortable to get something from him other than nothing. It’s quiet again for a while, and I pick at bits and pieces in front of me. Everything’s here. Meats, cheeses, breads, pastries and fruits. Continental. I think that’s what they call it. I don’t think we were on the plane long enough to get to Europe. Although, that driver that picked us up did have a hint of a French accent. No, can’t be France.
“How’s your ass?” he asks.
“Painful.”
A slight smirk crosses his features, hand taking the wine to his mouth. “Good. You asked for it.”
“And I asked for the rest as well?”
“You asked for me. You got me.”
“And that’s you entirely?”
Nothing comes out of his mouth as an answer to that. He just carries on chewing and looks at me, as if he’s memorising every feature on my face, every mark on my skin. I watch the bread break in his hands, knowing the feeling well as I bring some meat up to my lips and nibble. “Have you always been into this? Like Malachi? Is that why you know him?”
“I’ve never touched anyone like I’ve just touched you in my whole life.”
My brows shoot up, the meat hovering in shock. For someone who says he’s never done any of that before, he seemed to know a lot about what he was doing. At least the orgasms prove he does even if the feeling on my skin burns like hell. I move slightly in the chair, trying to ease my ass and the feeling all over me. “No one?”
“No one.”
“Only me?”
“Only you.”
I finger the table, finding some solace in that, some sense of connection again. “Then how-“
“This is all just another logical process of education. It’s like an atom. How many times can you split it before it combusts. As you know, I research well.”
“You’re likening this place to science?”
“I’m likening it to medicine. Run the risks, make the judgements, and generate a cure if possible.” He leans back and takes his wine with him, watching as I eat some more food. “Human trials are always part of that process. You’re a good trial to have played with.”
Another frown crosses my brow at the distance that last sentence creates. Although, there’s no reason for my irrational response to it. I should close down again, remember what he said and think on the woman I’ve become while I’m here. Singular. Stronger because of it.
I look at the table, attempting to dismiss the thought of us together away from here out of my thoughts. Hard, though. As painful as my skin is in some ways. Especially when I know he’ll be several floors above me while he eats, works, thinks. Every day I’ll be able to look upwards, stare at the building I’m in and track the windows up to his penthouse, all the time thinking about his hands and his mouth and the way he moves on me.
In me.
“That doesn’t explain how you know Malachi,” I mumble, eating a few pieces of fruit.
“I met him in New York at, what can only be described as, a macabre party. I was drunk, and he talked about drugs and the fact that he couldn’t get a decent supply.” I keep staring at the table, trying to lose myself in the monotone drone of his ambiguous words rather than think of the passion the same voice held a while ago. “For varying reasons, I’ve provided that, and now because of that I’m allowed in. The fact that I have more money than sense is also helpful. Most people here do.”
“So, you have to be rich?”
I reach for a glass of water, nodding at the fact that of course you would have to be - diamonds on necks, monogramed signet rings on fingers - and desperate to keep conversation going somehow so I can listen to that voice a while longer. I don’t know why. It’s pitiful really. This need in me for more that he either won’t or can’t give me.
“No, you have to not care about your life outside of here, Hannah, and he has to understand that and decide if he likes you enough to share his home with you. You fit the first part of the profile well. It’s why I brought you here.” That’s all. Nothing other than that.
I didn’t care about my life outside of here.
I take half-hearted sips of the water, wondering if I did or not. Maybe I didn’t. Maybe I just hoped I’d muddle through somehow, find a way of dealing with betrayal and disloyalty and drink my way through it all. But here, and because of Gray, I’ve found something else in myself, something new and exuberant, poised and prolific. Or maybe it’s something old, something that was buried. Rick’s still there, the betrayal profound, but I feel stronger because of here, more able to tolerate the heart that still creaks and groans around the memories of him. It’s this man in front of me that confuses me now. This man that has woven parts of himself into me and then cut ties he helped build.
My eyes lift to look at him, gaze roaming features that have become so real to me in a life that, as he says, is not real at all. Strong jaw under the stubble that’s grown, handsome. Sharp cut angles below those barely laughing anymore eyes.
I sigh as he turns away from my stare, acknowledging in some way that whatever this is it has come to its end, been forced that way. “I haven’t seen anyone else in this part of the house, castle, whatever it is,” I muse, picking at a piece of cheese.
“No. Intriguing, isn’t it? I think he likes you. Or he’s still playing with me. I’m not sure which. Either way, don’t think that his feelings are anything other than games. He isn’t your friend, Hannah. He only has one of those. She’s called Faith.” I nod again, accepting that, too.
“Has he always? Played with you, I mean.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
His gaze goes to the flowers in the middle of the table, a transfixed stare in place. “That, I’m not answering. Eat more food. You need it.”
“Why?”
“Because, as far as I’m aware, you haven’t eaten since I picked you up. You’re a human being. Food is necessary for survival.”
That isn’t what I meant.
I wanted information, conversation, thoughts and parts of him he’s not letting me into.
The cheese in my hand tumbles from my grip onto the plate, part of me not caring for his orders and the other rejecting the idea of food anyway. Why bother with
it? It doesn’t help make sense of where this man in front of me has gone in the last little while, and it doesn’t help me create a barrier like he’s so good at delivering at the close of a door.
I stand and walk to the bed, choosing sleep rather than conversation with something as barren as he’s become. So close, and now we’re feet away from each other in actual distance and yet a thousand miles because of the tone of his words.
“You need to eat,” he says from the table, in yet another monotone drone.
“No I don’t. Everything’s my choice and nothing to do with you.”
That’s all I’ve got. I’m a maze of questions he won’t answer and a cage of feelings I can’t process. Maybe sleep will help. Maybe I’ll wake up in the morning, or night, or whenever and something in my head will make sense again. I’ll be strong again, able to discern and assimilate my own feelings about me rather than hang on to the possibility of him having any for me.
I climb into the huge bed at the thought and discard the towel to the floor, my eyes looking at the slight pinked patches on it, as I pull the heavy sheets up to my chin. Everything feels low now, as if my highs have been replaced by melancholy and strewn memories.
My hand curls the blankets higher, legs tucking up as tight as they’ll go, and my finger starts tapping for a rhythm I can’t find. Where is my rhythm now? It’s gone. And the woman from the water, the one who rose and evolved and felt in control of everything, as she paced towards this man behind me, is gone, too. I need her back, because I’m lost again.
Torn and broken.
Chapter 18
Gray
G laring at the heather in the middle of the table, I stiffen my shoulders to substitute the need to go and curl up next to her. I should sleep elsewhere, create more room between us so she understands fully the intent here and remembers the words I’ve tried to drum into her the entire time.
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