“Everything,” I mutter as I stumble my way in. “Close your curtains.”
She shuts the door behind me, draws the curtains closed, and watches me cautiously. Her apartment is a studio, just one room, and there’s nowhere to sit except the futon cushion on the floor that has a blanket and pillow on it. I turn and glare at her remembering why I’m here. “Are you a prostitute?”
She narrows her eyes at me, but the shock I see in them is all the answer I need. It’s innocence. “No. Why would you ask that?”
I pinch the bridge of my nose in frustration; anger is rising in me. “Have you ever been a prostitute? Ever taken money for sex? I’m begging you to be honest with me right now, Faith. What remains of my sanity depends on it.”
She shakes her head and takes a step so that she’s standing directly in front of me. “No. What’s going on, Seamus?”
I believe her. She’s just another pawn in Miranda’s game. Any ill feelings I felt toward her disappear, but the anger is still bubbling within me, like a volcano preparing to erupt.
I reach out and run my fingertips along her cheek. A light touch and the restraint is physically taxing. Smashing things would relieve stress and anxiety; softness only makes it roil. When I get to her mouth, I switch to my thumb and increase pressure. Her bottom lip drags under my touch.
“Seamus?” she whispers my name. Her chest is rising and falling visibly now, and my mind is too fucked up to tell if it’s fear or lust filling her lungs so purposefully.
I lower my forehead until it’s resting against hers. My hand moves to the back of her neck. It’s a gentle movement, caressing the skin there.
Her hands are on my chest now. She’s not pushing me away. She’s fanning her fingers apart and then squeezing them together tightly. It’s the blatant, repetitive motion of someone restraining herself. Stalling until she’s given permission.
“I need to forget it all for a few hours, Faith. Make me forget who I am.”
I see a flash of understanding in her eyes. Sadness emerging. Demons of her own. Empathy. Agreement. She needs this too.
Our lips crush together. There’s desperation in the union that makes kissing impossible. It’s a battle to purge the hurt and assuage it simultaneously. Confusion reigns supreme in the clash. Tenderness is lacking. It’s feasting and biting and sucking.
Buttons are torn from my shirt in an effort to remove it quickly. The swift release of my zipper sounds like a cannon in the silent, small room.
“I hate this shirt. It’s fucking cheesy,” I tell her as I rip it over her head.
“I hate these pants. Khakis are fucking boring,” she counters, as she pulls down my pants and boxers in one swift jerk to my ankles.
There’s a temporary truce in the war as we stand, looking each other up and down. She wasn’t wearing any panties. We’re both naked—physically and emotionally.
“I hate her,” I hiss.
“I know,” she says, willingly absorbing the venom.
“I need to get this hate out. I’m so full of it I can’t breathe.” The hate and anger is so intense I swear I can see it, touch it, smell it. It’s driving me insane.
“Give me your hate, Seamus,” she whispers. “And I’ll give you mine.”
“Deal,” I say the word against her lips.
And just like that, we’re at each other again. Mouths and hands are greedy. There’s no trading of affection, no taking turns. We’re just two people vying for their own bodily pleasure as if it’s a hazard instead of gratification. Stimulation, touch, is reckless and rough. And though the wine has freed all my inhibitions, I feel like a different person. We’re feeding each other, off of each other. My mouth is moving its way across her chest. Her teeth are skirting the hard edge of my ear. My hands are mapping out her body like they’re memorizing the path to the Promised Land. She’s touched every inch of me from the waist up and currently has a firm grip on me below the belt. Pulling the pin out of a grenade is how this all going to end, one giant, mutual explosion between the two of us.
“I need to lie down.” My legs are unsteady and everything rushing through me isn’t helping.
I grab my pants from the floor and pull my angry purchase, a box of condoms, out of the pocket and tear one end open. Pulling a strip from inside, I let the box fall like an afterthought before moving to her bed on the floor.
I’m on my back when she curls up next to me on the mattress, watching intently as I tear the packet open and sheath myself. When I roll on my side, she presses up against me. Her eyes and fingertips are slowly and affectionately tracing the features of my face. Calling on connection. Urgency is gone. What has been, up to this point, animalistic, just turned intimate. And the intimacy governs my hate, taking control and diluting it with Faith’s innate goodness until all that remains is the need to pour love into this woman. The need to show her how she deserves to be loved.
And over the next hour, I learn something important.