Page 19 of So Close

A low moan of surrender leaves me. He has aroused me with his hands and excited me with his words. His fingers aren’t enough anymore.

“Take your underwear off and bend over,” he orders, his hands leaving me bereft.

I shimmy out of my panties, watching as he unfastens his belt and unzips the fly of his pale gray dress slacks. I reach for the island in the center of my closet. The cool marble chills my palms as I arch my back to present myself to him.

Darius growls as he fists his penis and rubs the head against the slickness of my sex. Then he leans in, entering me in a torturously slow glide. My eyes close on a gasped breath, my mind filling with heated memories of a different sexual encounter with a different man. Kane hadn’t been gentle or slow. He’d flipped me over, yanked me to the end of the bed and driven himself into me hard and fast.

My husband winds his fingers in my hair and tugs my head up. “Watch me fuck you,” he demands hoarsely as if he knows where my traitorous thoughts have wandered.

I stare at him, see the way he looks standing behind me – blue tie expertly knotted, white shirt crisply ironed. If pictured from the chest up, he’d look like a businessman at work. Instead, he’s a man thrusting his engorged cock into a lusty woman eager to climax. I am outside my body, watching. The sight is so erotic I shiver with desire.

“When the time is right, I’ll use everything against her for leverage to pull what’s left of Social Creamery out of Baharan,” he bites out, punctuating his words with rhythmic lunges. “Then I’ll make sure Kane finds out what she’s been up to. Once she’s out of the way, I can plan what’s next.”

My mouth falls open as I struggle to breathe. The relentless pull on my scalp as he uses my hair to hold me still for his pleasure is driving me mad. His plunge and retreat inside me is luscious. Everything in me is tightening and clenching, hungry for gratification. More, always more. Harder. Rougher.

I try to move, to quicken the pace, but he holds me motionless, using me to relieve the excitement of his jealous ambition. I am turned on by being used, just as thinking of tearing down Kane and his mother has Darius harder than steel.

Aroused by his fantasies of destroying his brother, my husband fucks me to a quivering orgasm.

16

LILY

The penthouse carriesthe weighted suspense of a held breath as I drift through its mirrored hallways. After seemingly endless days of physical therapy, nestling in this seductive refuge is heavenly. A perfect square, it sprawls over eight thousand square feet, with the arteries – elevator, garbage chute, stairwell and ducts – running through the center. The rooms cling to the exterior walls, each with a breathtaking view.

As I move through the deathly quiet, the scent of lilies twines around me, curling from where my bare feet touch the heated floors and rising to whisper around my throat like a jealous paramour. Beneath that fragrance is you, the bracing notes reminiscent of an ocean breeze and toasted wood. I breathe in and sigh with pleasure. My pulse quickens with an exhilarating surge that most resembles fear.

Half a dozen people are in the library with you, but the penthouse is as quiet as a tomb. Nothing echoes or carries. Only the sounds of the penthouse itself are evident – a soft moan in the buffeting breeze, a groaning creak as the tower sways like a dancer in the wind. Although I can detect no movement, the building tells me of its struggles. It’s a slender reed battered by the forces of nature, yet I am cradled and safe from that turbulence.

For the moment, the threats I face are within the walls, not without.

Is it because the penthouse resonates with sounds resembling a boat on a stormy sea that you chose this for your home? Lily went down with her ship. Have you lain in bed at night staring at her picture and listening to the tower, imagining you are sailingla Tempêtetogether, and when the ocean claims the vessel, she claims you, too?

It’s a morbidly romantic notion suggesting a fathomless love, yet you avoid me.

I’m simply unable to reconcile this new reality; the penthouse is so outside the framework within which I saw you. Was it that you needed this vantage to believe in yourself, to prove yourself? The design of the building prevents you from looking down at the ground, a sleight of hand meant to prevent billionaires’ wings made of wax and feathers from failing, not from rising too high but from the grind and grime of hard living below.

Not to say I don’t love what lies within the walls that enclose us. It’s a gilded cage so darkly beautiful that I want to lock the door from the inside, so no grasping hand can seize and take me away. Or push me out to plummet to the ground.

It’s surreal, as are you. I often hear my voice in my head, younger and softer, telling me this is all just a lucid dream. I wave my hand, willing the obsidian floor to mutate into clear glass with inky waters flowing beneath. I touch the wall, telling it to change color. Nothing I do or think or say can alter my surroundings, but it seems impossible to find myself here, in a home that looks like my deepest desire but isn’t, with a husband who looks like my love but isn’t.

Be careful what you wish for.

Isn’t this everything I ever wanted? You’ve resumed control of your birthright, Baharan. I wear your ring and bear your name. We live in this dazzling penthouse. It’s a devil’s bargain to live this life with you, and where will that lead? You have Baharan, but the family who abandoned you came with it. We’re married, but we’re strangers. And we have a dazzling aerie above the clouds, yet it’s devoid of love and laughter. I dreamed of this heaven. Instead, I find myself in hell.

The view opens as I enter the main living area, showcasing New York City at her finest. I pause a moment, absorbing the feel of the space. I’m reminded of a forest at night with the full moon glistening off lush moss and a tranquil, private pond. It’s opulently mysterious and unabashedly sensual.

I turn the corner from the formal dining room with its live edge table and green leather chairs and step into the kitchen, which feels like a space out of time.

The island is a repurposed antique. Dark wood, a multitude of drawers, brass pulls – possibly from an old apothecary or library. The nicks and dents give it character, while the gold-veined black granite top gives it panache. The stove is massive and modern in its features, with a black finish and aesthetic resembling vintage cast iron. The upper cabinets are stained wood, matching the finish of the island, while the lowers are painted a glossy black. Open shelving displays herbs and spices in uniform glass jars with chalkboard labels.

I reach a closed door and turn the knob. I know from the masculine scent that the room is Witte’s. I close it without entering. The handsome majordomo with the sharp, assessing gaze isn’t who interests me at the moment. However, the decision you’ve both made to house him within the penthouse rather than the staff floors farther down is intriguing.

The next room is a guestroom. With a palette of deep green and gold, it connects to the view of Central Park outside the windows. The next guestroom boasts shades of amethyst and lavender, and it’s only by seeing them in rapid succession that the nebulous thoughts at the back of my mind take shape. Both are astonishingly similar to Lily’s Connecticut beach house guestrooms and her West Village condominium. The inspiration is impossible to miss. Is your memory so vivid? Or is it that my dreams are?

Where areyouin this lavish home? I don’t see any trace of you.

When I catch your tall figure walking the halls, it’s as if the walls themselves shy away from you, uneasy with the restless energy that churns in your wake. Has my mind erased you? Is it only my obsession that imagines the briefest glimpses I catch of you, a thick column of smoke that swiftly disperses?

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