Page 12 of Light As A Feather
“When the calls stopped coming for months at a time, it was the only thing that held my sanity together.” His knee creeps closer, mere centimeters from where my pulse betrays me between my legs. “But when those nights did come—and yes, I recall that they were all nights—were you drunk when you called?—they were the proof of life that restored my hope for just a bit longer. My heart was revived with each flash of unknown caller across the screen.”
“I don’t remember any of that.” Shaking fingers around strangers’ cell phones come to mind. “You’re right. I did drink the pain away some nights.”
“So, you admit, you missed me.”
The lie that I want to spew has claws and it digs them into my throat, refusing to be spoken. Instead, I settle for avoidance. “I missed familiarity. I missed my home.”
“Iam your home.”
“Maybe you were once, but you can’t be anymore. I don’t have a home.”
“You said we were forever. Do you remember that?” A firm pressure sends a jolt of disorienting lightning through my body as his knee makes contact with my cunt. The thick fabric of my leggings may as well be tissue paper. My thoughts scramble when I can no longer drown out the blaring alarm of my racing pulse. “I asked you a question, Solaneen. Do you remember the promise you made me?”
Tilting my head back and closing my eyes, I avoid the damning demand in his gaze. “We were young and naive, Hawthorne. We thought we had our entire lives ahead of us.”
“We still do.” I fight a moan as he leans into me, applying more pressure.God, it’s been so long since I’ve been touched.
“You wouldn’t say that if you knew everything that I do.”
“Try me.”
“There’s nothing you can do. Drop this. Untie me.”
“The only way I’m letting this go is if I drop dead.”
Pleasure and frustration tangle within me, making putting together coherent sentences even harder than usual. “This is where our story ends. It should’ve ended a long time ago, but apparently, we love torturing each other. Just a couple of masochists.” I grit my teeth as the entirety of my being quivers. Pain radiates through my jaw and swells behind my eyes in silent protest.
“There is no end.” He grips my chin gently, forcing me to look right at him. “There’s only you and me.” His attention flicks to the keyhole tattoo in the center of my chest; the one that matches the antique key he has tattooed on the inside of his finger.
“Has our time apart made you doubt the depths of my devotion?” There’s an undercurrent of sorrow in his question.“Did you forget that there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you? Even let you vanish into the night like an apparition because you asked it of me.”
I raise my bound wrists from my lap. “So much for that, huh?”
“Because it wasn’t what you truly wanted. You told me over and over again in your own way, even if you didn’t mean to tell me, I heard your call and I answered accordingly.” His thumb strokes the foliage that creeps up the side of my cheek. “There’s no piece of myself I wouldn’t give to make us whole again.”
“It’s never been about what you would and wouldn’t do for me. It’s about what I won’t allow you to sacrifice. I’m not willing to risk anything happening to you.”
“My sweet Nightingale, that decision isn’t yours to make anymore. It’s my turn. It’s time for you to put your trust in me.” His forehead meets mine. “Don’t you remember how good we are together?”
“I’ve changed, Hawthorne. More than you know.”
“Have you?” His knee slides forward another inch. We hold one another’s gaze in a standoff. “You can change your hair, cover your skin in more tattoos, even bury the most important parts of yourself under the rubble of your survival, I’d recognize you no matter what. But more than that,you are mine, Solaneen. Time, distance, and even death can’t change that.” Soft lips vibrate against mine with his lowered, possessive tone.
“The woman you love is dead. Bury me and be done with it. Kill this incessant thing between us while you still have the chance.” An eerie stillness comes over him as if I’ve just poured magmatic granite through his veins, turning him to stone. His gaze hardens, eyes going cold and distant.
Have I finally shattered him? Concern lances through me sharp and hot, but before I can say anything, he snaps out of it.
“Leave,” he yells at whoever is on the other side of that glass, and then his eyes set on me, a burning desire there that sets my blood aflame and both of us tumbling into something that feels far too close to damnation.
We’ll be lucky if either of us survives this.
The torture of the last few years crescendos, overriding everything but the raw need for her that I’ve been trying to suppress for too long. My lips crash into hers, and my fingers twist through the hair at the base of her neck, anchoring her in place.
To my surprise, she doesn’t resist. Maybe it’s the shock, or maybe it’s her accepting my terms—doubtful she would fold that easily—but I don’t care. Not right now. It’s not the time for discussion or compromise. All that matters is her eager tongue, her perfume enveloping me in an earthy sweetness, her warm skin against mine.
“Thorne,” she pleads.
I have no mercy. I devour her weak admonishment, taste it for the desperate attempt at failing self-control that it is. I don’twant her restrained and fearful. I want her brave and trusting, the way she used to be when she looked at me.
