He kissed her gasping mouth, hard and angrily, and slammed the door. He'd brought this pain on her. He’d fucking failed her.
On his sprint back to the driver's side, he glanced through the restaurant window. Liv and Joshua sat in a booth in the back corner, heads bowed over a shared menu. His gait slowed, but only for a second. There'd be another time, another chance. And if not, fuck them. He'd find different way, one that didn't destroy Amber.
He climbed behind the wheel and found her slumped over her lap, her head crooked in an awkward angle. The backs of his eyes burned as he reclined her seat back and positioned her limp body beneath the seatbelt. Then he drove his broken doll home.
Hope had a way of leading a guy on, offering tantalizing glimpses of possibilities and enticing him to the edge of belief. But it didn't put out. Van had been on the giving end of such things throughout his criminal history, which made it even more harrowing to watch Amber succumb to hope's cruel disappointment.
A month had passed since the drive to the restaurant, and she'd regressed, immediately and spectacularly.
“Get up.” He stood over the bed where she spent the majority of the day, every day.
She rolled to her back, blinking heavy eyelids, and held out her arms. “Make love to me.” She dropped her arms and looked away. “Please?”
His body felt cold, his heart weighted down with the ache it had been carrying for too damned long. Maybe her devastation was partly due to her disappointment in herself. But he knew the bigger part was in her inaccurate belief that she'd disappointed him.
He yanked back the sheets and let his weight press down on her nude body. He could never deny her, not even now in her numb state of existence. With a hand on her face, he held her eyes and gave her the words he repeated daily. “I love you, I want you, and I will never ever be disappointed in you.”
She kissed him. Her usual response, maybe some kind of coping mechanism.
He matched her licks and nibbles then took over, leading her, controlling this. It was what she wanted and what he needed. He released his belt and opened his jeans, her hands already on his cock, stroking it to readiness.
As he worked himself into her wet heat, her eyes glowed. These were the only moments when he saw that light, the only way he seemed to be able to bring her out of her head. Not the belt nor the whip nor his restraints affected her. Not even when he hauled her outside every night. She'd lost interest in everything but him. And his cock.
It wasn't healthy, and it didn't help her. He was a toxin, polluting her mind and making her worse. If he let this go on, he would destroy her.
He brought her to climax, and as he followed her over the brink of momentary bliss, her words rushed in, punching an agonizing hole through his heart.
You're the only person who has ever given enough of a shit about me to shove me out the door.
As he held her limp body in his arms, the vibrancy in her eyes dulled to blankness. She sank into the mattress, her heat pulling away, and a frigid void slipped between them. It was slow and subtle and perhaps unintentional, but her detachment strained and ripped every nerve-ending in his body.
God, he wanted her light back. He would ejaculate inside her over and over if it could fill her with life. But the sex was fleeting. If anything, she was colder and more despondent after they made love.
He wanted to argue that he loved her too much to shove her out the door. Truth was he loved her too much not to. Just like her behavior with the deliverymen, she was only getting by without getting better.
And he’d become another Zachary Kaufman.
Her independence was the key to unlocking the windows and returning the light. Without it, there was no life.
That night, he made the most painful decision he'd ever made. He drugged her dinner, packed up her things, and gave her back her self-sufficiency. He returned her to her house and reinstated her life, a better life, without him.
For hours, he lingered in her bed, wrapped around her unconscious body, immobilized by the gravity of his decision and struggling to breathe through the agony of it. Soon, he would have to rise from her side and give her the only thing he had to offer—life itself.
Death seemed easier than this godawful burden of losing her. But she had a hell of a fight ahead of her, and if she could suffer through that, then he could endure the loneliness that awaited him.
He couldn’t stop the tears burning his eyes as he pressed his lips against her unresponsive mouth. He was numb to the violent tremors wobbling his steps as he staggered down the hall without turning around. He squeezed his eyes shut as he stumbled into the garage, the excruciating pain in his chest eclipsing the crash of the concrete floor against his knees.