It would be so easy to kill him, right now.
If not for Ben.
Aston rolled over onto his side, then propped his head up on his hand, letting his eyes roam the length of my body. He trailed a finger down the middle of my back and over my rear, and I shivered at his touch.
"Meia," he said. "Your body is perfection."
I closed my eyes, murmured something unintelligible in response. I didn't want to hear Aston talk about my body. Instead, I pretended to still be dozing, while all the while my mind was preoccupied with thoughts of him.
Hammer.
There was something bizarrely comforting about listening to Hammer talk. I'm not even sure why I gave him my number, except that there was something...wounded...about him, like a dog that had been abused. But it was more than that. There was something more than sadness behind his eyes - there was anger. And that I was familiar with. That was a look I recognized. I'd seen it in myself countless times.
I wasn't sure why I kept talked to him on the phone. He felt like a kindred spirit.
Of course, I also couldn't help but think about how he'd looked at me that first day we met, that fire in his eyes that sent a surge of arousal through me. That wasn't exactly something I was familiar with.
Aston's touch jolted me back to reality, his fingers between my legs, inching their way forward, touching me. "You're wet," he whispered.
But it wasn't because of Aston. It was the thoughts of Hammer that were making me wet.
I rolled over onto my side, looked into Aston's eyes. And as his hands began to roam my body, touching my breasts, then his fingers slipping inside me, I found my thoughts wandering like they always did. It was the same thing I'd done since I was a child, back when I'd been forced to endure what I'd had to endure. I was an expert at drifting away, to a fantasy place in my mind.
But this time, for the first time, I thought of someone else. Hammer.
And that fact sent a rush of fear through my heart. I didn't need anyone to make me think of the possibility that there might be more than this for me in life. I didn't need to put anyone else in harm's way. I already had my sister's blood on my hands. I had failed to protect her. I was responsible for my son's life now. That was the most important thing.
I embraced the darkness.
Meia's words echoed in my head. Embrace the darkness. Not fight it. Maybe it was part of my nature. Maybe it was fighting against it that was killing me inside.
So I started embracing my own darkness. By data searching Meia. She’d told me to leave it alone, but I couldn’t. I wanted to know who she was, and whether she was safe. I wanted to know why she was with Aston.
I wanted to know everything about her.
But with all my skills, I’d basically found nothing. She was a blank slate before she was with Aston. She'd been photographed on his arm a number of times over the past two years. But prior to that? It was like she'd never existed.
I wanted to know why.
I think it was also because I couldn't sit there anymore at night, alone, thinking about April being gone. I couldn't sit there in the darkness, thinking about where I'd gone wrong with my daughter, about whether or not she'd ever be okay, or whether she'd be depressed forever.
I told myself it was out of concern for Meia that I did what I did next. And that I didn't tell her.
It wasn't that I was becoming obsessive.
I only wanted to make sure she was safe.
I started following her, watching her. I noted the men who tailed her, not every day, but sometimes, from a safe distance. The one who sometimes sat outside her apartment in a car. I started tracking their schedule.
I wasn't becoming obsessive.
I was still in control.
He called that night, the person to whom I'd already become too attached. Tayza had a point about letting go, not becoming too attached to some things-attachments to people were dangerous. This - whatever this was with Hammer - these phone calls that I'd begun to look forward to, were dangerous for him. He didn't need to become involved with this.
I was home alone, sitting on the floor, trying to calm the storm that raged on in my mind. Meditating only seemed to make it worse, to give more freedom to the thoughts that swirled around like whirlpools in the water, threatening to pull me down into their depths.
When Hammer called, I was grateful for the interruption. And not only because it gave me a reason to get out of my head. But because it was him. I’d been talking to him, stolen phone calls at night. I knew it was stupid, foolish, even if I was taking precautions, walks late at night, using my disposable phone. I had only taken that unnecessary risk the first time. I was being smart.
I swore to myself that I would stop whatever was happening with Hammer.