Chapter Ten
Trey
I am a statue. Frozen on Sloan’s floor. Her door—15D—looms ominously at the end of the long hallway. I’ve been standing outside the elevator for five minutes, maybe ten. I don’t know anymore.
All the while, I’ve been remembering how she liked it. How she wanted me from behind, standing up, how she said she came easily like that. How she was a fiery one, wanting it hard, wanting it rough. Rocking back into me, moaning, groaning, shouting, screaming, her sounds erasing all the feelings inside me, taking me away to a land of nothing but pleasure. F*cking Sloan was like that perfect buzz. It erased all the images in my head, all the cruel, cold memories of last breaths, of death staining my arms.
I want to be buzzed again. I want to be drunk out of my mind. I want to shut off all the pathways to my heart.
But I can’t seem to move my feet. I can’t walk this hallway. And I can’t knock on that door. Because the pathway to my heart is blocked, by the girl I love. By the one person I can’t shut off. And I can’t f*cking believe I took the elevator to Sloan’s floor, like some kind of junkie on autopilot.
I stare at my traitorous feet, and they shame me because they brought me here.
I am the alcoholic who walks into the bar, who asks for a beer, who brings it to his lips, then spits it out. Because that’s what I have to do now. Walk the f*ck away. My limbs are quicksand, but somehow I turn around and stab the elevator button, hitting it over and over.
“Come on. Come on.”
I run my hands through my hair, ashamed, so ashamed of how close I came. I need my getaway car. I need to escape. I can’t have temptation writhing at my feet, trying to trip me.
I push the button one more time, rewarded by the chug of the elevator shooting up to save me.
The doors open and I f*cking jump into it, bang hard on the lobby button and pray the doors close quickly, like chains on my wrists to save me from me.
The elevator begins moving, and I can’t even think about what I almost did. As soon as I make my way out of the lion’s den I call Harley. I have to see her, to wrap myself up in her, to hold her close, breathe her in, feel safe the only way I can.
With her.
“Where are you? I want to see you,” I tell her, grateful that we can talk in this shorthand.
“Leaving Joanne’s.”
“Meet me at my place?”
“Sure, I found more cards. I want to tell you about it.”
“Great. I want to hear everything,” I say, but that’s a lie.
I don’t want to talk. I don’t want to play detective. I need to numb these feelings, surround myself with her, her scent, her smell, her taste, so I can rid my brain of the onslaught of memories. Harley can do that for me. Right?
“Can you meet me at my apartment?”
“Sure. I’ll be there in twenty minutes,” she says.
“Me too.”
On the subway, I crank up the music and push in my earbuds, blasting some tunes to drown out the thoughts that I don’t want to let infect me. I don’t want to think about what’s next, what’s ahead, how to deal, how to be, how to love, how to handle.
When I reach my stop, I walk quickly to my building and she’s there, waiting outside, looking sexy as f*ck in a tank top, skirt and combat boots. Her legs are bare, and already I’m picturing turning her around and hiking up that skirt.
“So, you’re never going to believe this,” she says when I’m a few feet away, rolling her eyes. “Actually, you will believe it.”
But I silence any more words with a hard, hot kiss, cupping the back of her neck in my hand, threading my fingers through her hair, needing contact, needing pleasure to mute the pain.
She’s startled at first, but only for a second because she’s used to my kisses, completely accustomed to how much I want to touch her, everywhere, anywhere, in public, in private. I can’t keep my hands off her, and that’s why she’ll never know where my mind is right now. She’s into it, parting her lips, welcoming my tongue sliding over hers, letting me crush my lips against her mouth. Her purse slips down her arm, dangles on her elbow as I kiss her so hard my head starts to turn cloudy.
Ah, perfect.
It’s like the first sip of a cold beer, and I want another drink. Besides, I can take endless drinks from the tap of Harley, and it’s not addiction, it’s not a problem, it’s not an issue what-so-f*cking-ever because she’s the only one, she’s not married, she’s not someone else’s. She’s mine, so I am allowed to let her wash over me.
Make me forget.
Make me feel no pain.
“Let’s go inside,” I say, and a minute later we’re in my apartment and the door is shutting.
“So, how was your day? Did you see your parents?” she asks. She’s in a chatty mood again.
I shake my head. “I don’t want to talk. I just want you.” I fall into her again, the press of her body some kind of balm for my fearful heart. Because it’s working. It’s f*cking working. The feel of her is an anesthetic. “I love you,” I murmur in her ear, as much to remind myself as to get her in the state I need her in. Because I want her blissed out, drunk from sex, too. We can get wasted together. “I love you so f*cking much,” I say, and she moans softly from the words. I know her, I know this girl.She loves hearing it, she can’t get enough of it, and it turns her on to no end.
“I love you too,” she says, roping her arms around my neck, and her voice is so honest, so pure, that it nearly jolts me from the haze that’s coating my brain. But my body is taking over, and I want her, I want to f*ck her, I want her to take me away from me. I want to escape in sex.
I pull apart, grab her hand and lead her to the tiny alcove of the kitchen. She raises an eyebrow. “Are we going to do it on the counter?”
I love the idea. I want to someday. But not today, because I’d have to look at her.
And I don’t want connection. I want contact.
“Against the counter. You against the counter,” I whisper roughly in her ear, then lick my way from her earlobe down to the hollow of her throat, kissing her there where it makes her gasp and arch her back even while she’s standing.
“Okay,” she says and she sounds the tiniest bit nervous.
We’ve had tons of sex, countless rounds, and we’ve tried many positions, but I’ve never f*cked her from behind. That’s the only way I want her right now.
“I like looking at you though,” she says, and she’s so damn sweet, and so damn kind, and so f*cking perfect, I can’t take it, because I don’t want it right now. I bend my head to her neck, lay a kiss in the spot that drives her wild.
“I know, but it will feel so good this way. Do you trust me?”
She nods. “You know I do.”
“Then let’s do it this way, okay?”
She nods. And hell, I like to look at her too. But I can’t right now. I turn her around.
“Put your hands on the counter,” I tell her, and she listens, pressing her palms down.
“Like this?” She asks, all sweet and willing to try.
“Yeah.”
I slide a hand between her legs, and her underwear is wet, and the feel of her heat makes me even harder. I peel off her underwear, letting it fall to her ankles. She starts to step out of them, to shimmy them over her boots, but I stop her. “Leave them on. You look hot like that.”
She wiggles her ass once, then turns to me, an eager look in her eyes as if she’s asking me if she did it right. God, it kills me. Because she does everything right. “Beautiful,” I say, as I hike up her skirt. I unzip my jeans, push my briefs down, and guide my hard-on to the Promised Land, rubbing my dick against her wetness, and I start to push in.
“F*ck,” I say, cursing myself. “I’ll grab a condom.”
She laughs, drops her head in her hand. She turns back to me. “Don’t know if you got the memo, Trey, but we don’t have to use those anymore.”
I take a sharp breath, the reminder I don’t need or want right now. “Right,” I say, managing a laugh as I press my thumbs against her ass, spreading her cheeks, lifting her up a bit for the perfect angle. I sink into her, and close my eyes.
The feel of her heat is almost too much, but I know how to control myself, because I’ve had sex without condoms before. Some of my ladies liked it that way. Mrs. Fitzpatrick had her tubes tied, and Sloan was on the pill. I was sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, and when the thirty-year-old hottie told me it was fine to f*ck her without a rubber, I didn’t question the wisdom of an older woman. I slid home. So this isn’t my first time riding bareback, but it’s one of my first few times like this with Harley, and she’s so tight and hot against me that I have to still myself so I don’t come too soon. I don’t want to come yet. I don’t want to come for hours. I want to f*ck her for as long as I can, for as long as it takes to numb me again.
So I do, taking slow, deep strokes. In. Out. Hot. Wet. Deep. I close my eyes, let my instincts take over, f*cking her against the counter like I did the others. Bent over their bathroom sinks. Up against their walls. In elevators. On the counter while no one was home. Them telling me how good it felt, how much they loved it, how I took care of them like no one else did.
They took care of me, too. They turned my mind blank, and they coated my neurons in pleasure and ecstasy. And I’m going back there now.
“You look so f*cking hot in this position,” I tell her, because they all did, and that’s what they all wanted to hear.
She moans, and pushes back, letting me fill her.
“You like that?”
“Yes,” she says, and I can hear the desire thick and hot in her voice. But she’s not Harley anymore to me. She’s anyone.
“Do I make you feel good?” I ask, falling into my old persona, the things I said and did, even though they were the ones who talked more. They were the ones who said you make me feel so good.
“You always do,” she says.
“Rock back into me. You’ll come easily like this.”
“It feels so good,” she says, all breathless and needy.
“Because you love this position,” I say.
She flinches, but I keep going, the words spilling out of me of their own accord. “It makes you come so f*cking hard.”
She says nothing.
“I want you to shout so loud it drowns out everything.” I hardly know what I’m saying, but the words are flying from my mouth like I have no control over them.
Then she stops moving.
“Everything,” I repeat, losing myself in the rush, in the feelings, in the ecstasy of f*cking her.
Her shoulders tense, but I can feel the blood racing faster in my body, tearing through my veins, the sparks building, and I start to pump harder, faster, and I can feel it building, and it’s going to wash away the pain, the fear, the worry, the five stages, the way I’ll never hurt again. It’s going to do the job, and if it doesn’t we’ll do it again and again and again, and then once more.
“F*ck,” I shout, as I drive deeper into her, coming inside her. Then I slump against her back, resting my cheek against her shoulder, savoring the way I’m buzzed, and no longer worrying about anything.
But she wriggles away from me. She turns around and stares sharply at me. A noise catches in her throat, but then she buries the tears, and her brown eyes are blazing mad. She grabs her underwear, yanks them up, adjusts her skirt, and pushes me away.
Hard.
“Don’t f*ck me like that. Don’t ever f*ck me like that again.”
I stumble against the wall, my underwear and jeans at my feet. “What are you talking about?” I ask, playing dumb, or maybe I’m not playing because I feel pretty stupid right now.
She points a finger at me. “You know what I’m talking about, Trey Westin. I’m not one of them. I’m me. I’m the woman you’re supposed to love. Don’t ever f*ck me like that again.”
Then she grabs her purse and marches to the door.
“Wait!” I call to her, grasping for my briefs and tugging them up. “Don’t go.”
She breathes in through her nostrils. Breathes out, hard. “I’m going, and it would be really great if you don’t come after me. If you don’t show up at f*cking midnight acting all sorry. And if you don’t call Kristen and convince her to let you in.”
My heart plummets. Shit. “Harley, I’m sorry.”
“I’m so impressed you remembered my name,” she spits back.
“You’ve gotta let me apologize.”
“I am letting you. That doesn’t mean I want to see you again tonight. You can say you’re sorry six ways to Sunday, but that doesn’t change what you just did to me.”
“You act like I raped you.”
She rolls her eyes. “Get over yourself. I never said that. You f*cked me and pretended I was one of your women. You love this position. We’ve never done it in that position, you f*cking ass. Did you think I would forget? You come hard like this? What the f*ck is wrong with you? You pretended I was someone else. You used me like a drug. Just because you have more experience having sex than me doesn’t mean you can pull the wool over my eyes.” She taps the side of her head, her eyes dark and filled with fire. “You might be the only guy I’ve ever slept with, but I’m not stupid. Don’t forget—I’m an addict too, so you can’t fool me.”
Deny. That is all I know. It is all I can rely on. It is my only recourse. I have a f*cking master’s degree in it. It’s been a daily practice of mine. “I didn’t, Harley, I swear. Jesus, I just wanted to do it against the counter. You act like it’s such a big deal.”
She parks her hands on her hips. “It is a big deal. Us. This. You and me. It’s the biggest deal. Sex between us is a big deal and if you can’t handle that, then sorry, Trey. But it’s a big deal for a million f*cking reasons, not the least of which is this,” she says, pressing her hands to her belly. “Everything matters.”
“You are seriously overreacting and you need to calm down. Is this preg—”
She holds up her hand. Her palm could stop a truck right now. “No. Just don’t, Trey. Just don’t.”
She turns around, grabs the door handle and pulls it open. She looks back at me one more time. “I need a break. I don’t want you to show up tonight saying you’re sorry. Or tomorrow. Or Sunday.”
This is the real bullet, and it shoots straight through my chest. “Are you breaking up with me?” I ask, my voice wobbly.
“I’m saying we need a break right now. Goodbye.”
Then she leaves. She doesn’t slam the door. She closes it quietly, and walks away, leaving me alone with all my terrible loneliness.
And I don’t feel an ounce less pain. I feel everything, all the weight of my stupid decisions, and it hurts so much, because my trick didn’t work. I didn’t fool myself. I didn’t fool anyone. She is gone, and the memories and the images play on a reel in my head. Each one. Each brother. Each death.
It’s on a punishing loop that I deserve.