“Not the best writing? You haven’t turned the page since I’ve been here.”
She shut the book with more force than was necessary and let it fall to her side.
Her scent was enough to make me hard, and I pressed against her. As she stared silently at the ceiling, her tongue came out to moisten her bottom lip.
“Tell me you don’t want me,” I said, teasing.
“No.”
“Then tell me you want me.”
“No.”
This time her voice was a whisper. A lie.
Her heart raced under my palm. Slowly, carefully, I eased myself away from her. This was dangerous, and I could not take her now. Not now. I struggled to keep myself from pinning her down, taking her right then.
If she could not make up her mind, I would not make it for her. For the first time in a long time, I found myself wanting something I could not have, and although I wanted to take it, I could not bring myself to. I turned at the doorway and looked at her out of the corner of my eye. Dim gray curves in my bed.
The new brass lock on the door shone brightly in front of me. I touched the deadbolt with my finger. Cool metal. I wanted to touch her, her warm skin, her deliciously tender breasts.
“Don’t kill anyone while you’re out there.”
“I won’t,” I said. She was teasing, yet not teasing. I struggled to find the words to ask what I wanted to ask.
“When I come back…” I trailed off. I had never felt so uncertain, so uncomfortable around anyone. I felt as though I had opened up a part of myself that I should not have opened. It irritated me, grated on my nerves. Did she really care about me? And why did it matter?
“Do what you want,” she said.
What more could I ask for?
The bar I went to had a crowd of people on one end, near the pool tables. For a moment I considered leaving, but then I thought of Kat and sat down at the other end of the bar, next to a middle-aged biker.
This would be her first test with the lock. Would she try to escape? I had waited a while downstairs before leaving and heard nothing coming from the room. But she was smarter than I had given her credit for before.
I would not make that mistake again. One drink, maybe two, and then I would return.
The uncertainty that had grabbed hold of me was astounding. In my own home, I felt like an intruder. Watching her on the bed, I felt out of my element. Uneasy.
I’d never felt uneasy before.
I gulped down the whiskey I’d ordered. The liquid burned as it slid down the back of my throat, easing the irritation. What was it about her that had gotten so far under my skin?
“Hard day?” the bartender asked.
“Why?” I snapped my head up.
“You just look a bit out of it,” he said. “Another one?”
I looked down to see an empty glass in front of me. With a single finger, I pushed it forward. He tilted the bottle of whiskey and flooded the glass again.
Out of it. Out of my mind? Out of character, that was for sure. Mentally I ticked off the alarming symptoms. Guilt, something that had never afflicted me before. Irritation and unease. Worry.
“I should kill her,” I muttered.
“Mine, too,” the man sitting next to me said.
“Excuse me?”
“My wife. You can kill ‘er too.” His words were slurred, drunken.
At the other end of the bar the group of people cheered a good pool shot. A woman leaned over the pool table, her breasts hanging like pendulums. Her chest was wrinkled, the epidermis stretched and spotted from years of tanning.
“Oh,” I said.
“Damn bitches. If it ain’t one thing, it’s another. Nag, nag, nag. You can’t do anything right with ‘em. Don’t even bother trying, am I right?”
He held his beer bottle up and clinked it hard against my glass. My empty glass. I raised a finger and ordered another. The bartender obliged.
“She kick you out of the house?” the man said, his smiling face disgustingly ruddy.
“No,” I said.
The bar was growing dark, or maybe it was just me. Or the shadow. I blinked and looked around. It had come back, yes. She had distracted me from it, but she was not here now. I felt the numbness of the shadow creep into the edges of my mind.
“Outta my way, Sharon!” One of the drunken men elbowed the woman next to the pool table. Tattoos sleeved both of his thick arms, peeking out from under his stained white tee.
“You can’t get that shot,” she snapped back, moving unhappily back, arms crossed.
“Jus’ gotta get away sometime, I hear you,” the ruddy man next to me said. I breathed in, trying to find air.
“You feelin’ okay?” His beer breath assaulted me. I pushed back my stool from the bar. Everything was dark. I could barely see the edge of the bar in front of me.
“I… I just need to think.”
Glass shattered on the floor next to the pool table. I closed my eyes.
“You dumb fucking bitch!”
A slap. A scream.