by Bea Paige
“Rosie, what are you doing?” Roman asks, his gaze darkening.
Just for a moment I regret my decision to strip off, his stare unnerving me, but I force myself to turn my back on him and step up onto the edge of the boat, the heat of the sun, the wind, and Roman’s gaze tingling every inch of my skin.
“Come and swim in the depths with me, Roman,” I say, before pushing off on the balls of my feet and diving into the ocean…
“Rose, it’s okay, you don’t have to go on,” Anton says, taking my hand and grasping it tightly.
I look up at him, dragging myself from the past into the present moment. His concern seems genuine but then I look closely and see his need to devour every aspect of me… Well, here I am, Anton, bleeding cerulean blue whilst the boat with the same name creaks and groans under the lashing wind.
“That was the last time I’d truly been happy. Free. I dived into the ocean a carefree child with little idea of how the world worked. I’d believed that love was blooming on the decks of that ship, a silly girl’s notion that romance did exist, that happy ever afters were filled with days as bright and as warm as those few hours on deck. But the moment I emerged from the water everything changed.”
“Did he rape you, Rose?” Anton asks quietly.
I shake my head, the wind whipping my hair in lashes about my face. “No. Everything that happened was consensual. I did it for love. I endured for love...”
Just like Ivan had a few days ago. Just like Amber had for Anton. My gut twists.
“I’d known Roman was dangerous, but I’d convinced myself he wasn’t. It’s amazing what self-preservation can do to your mind. Even when he’d tied me up and locked me in a tiny cupboard below decks for twelve long hours that first time, after fucking me for just as long, I believed in the power of love. I believed he would set me free, and he did eventually, he did, but not before he bathed in my salty tears, stealing every last drop until I had nothing left to give. He twisted my love for him until I was nothing like the girl who dived into that water hoping to lose her virginity to a man who adored her.”
“Fuck!” Anton slams his fist into the rocky wall of the harbour.
His knuckles bleed. I envy him the blood that pours from his cracked skin, at least it shows his heart still beats.
“On the third night, trapped in the bowel of that ship, I finally broke. My poor heart was shattered, my body bruised from the abuse, my insides torn from rough sex. Never once did I tell him to stop, believing his bright smiles and every single whispered word of love. He fucked me like an animal but adored me with his words. I drank them down, I believed them all until, eventually, Rosie disappeared, replaced instead with a woman whose soul was stronger and darker than his. You were right, Anton. Roman saw the spark of darkness that lingered in my heart and I saw it in his. Like does attract like. Even now, after all this time, I can’t hate him.”
“Fuck, Rose…”
I turn from Anton and walk further along the jetty, and up a set of stone steps built into the harbour wall. We’ve been out here so long my fingers have gone numb. It’s a feeling I’m used to. Numbness is a way of life for me, both within and out. Anton steps up beside me and wraps an arm around my shoulder. I don’t have the strength to push him away.
Taking in another shuddering breath, I dig deep into the past wanting to finish my story, needing the release.
“When Roman came down the steps on the fourth day holding a kitchen knife, I’d known that my life was about to end. He’d looked at me with empty eyes. Eyes devoid of remorse, guilt, love. That’s when my demon appeared. She filled my chest with a darkness so bottomless that Roman had faltered. It was long enough for me to show him just how powerful I’d become, just how dark. He’d raised that knife to my throat and I’d pushed against it, feeling it cut my skin, but I didn’t falter. Instead of killing me, Roman drew me into his arms and kissed me for the first time like a man would kiss a woman he loved. I knew then that I’d won. He didn’t let me go though. For almost two weeks he kept me a prisoner on that boat. Returning me to that cupboard every time he wanted to punish me for some minor misdemeanor. I think he thought that eventually I’d break, but I got stronger every time, not weaker. Eventually we returned to dry land. My father found us a couple of months later at his brother’s place in Devon, shooting him in cold blood. In my rage and despair, I’d tried to shoot my father. I missed, but the shock gave him a heart attack. I didn’t try to save him. I watched my father die, just like you watched Amber fade away in your arms when you fucked her.”
Anton tugs me into his arms, pressing my head against his chest. “Christ, Rose. I’m so sorry.”
“What for? You were right about everything.”
“You’re a product of abuse, of a terrible ordeal. I made a mistake believing otherwise.”
“No, you were absolutely right about me. Roman might’ve been the first man I experienced the true nature of my soul with, but he wasn’t the last. His memory doesn’t stoke the demon within me, I do that all on my own. That boat and the memories it holds is nothing more than an anchor pulling me under the waves, drowning me. I want to purge myself once and for all, Anton. So, here I am haemorrhaging Cerulean Blue; the brightest colour of my youth and the darkest depths of my soul. It’s all yours. I give it to you freely.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Anton
I help Rose onto her bed. Her skin is cold, her fingers like icicles and she holds herself stiffly.
She’s apathetic, lost in the storm of her memories. Her chest open and weeping. She might not be crying, but her pain is no less real without the tears.
And it guts me… it fucking guts me.
This Rose isn’t someone I recognise. Where’s the strength I’ve seen on countless occasions? Where’s the woman who’s fierce and brave?
“You should go home,” Rose murmurs.
An ominous cloud lingers over her. In the dim light of her bedroom I can almost see it, touch it. Her brittle darkness is a draw like no other and that’s why I’ll never leave.
“You know I can’t do that, Rose.”
How can I when she’s given me these pieces of herself? Cerulean Blue is both a colour and a shared memory emblazoned now on my own fucking soul. I’m not prepared to give up any of the other colours she chooses to share with me, and the ones she won’t.
“You want to comfort me, just like you comforted Amber, is that it?” Her laugh is brittle, hollow.
“No…” I say, honestly. “I never wanted to destroy Amber, it was an inevitability that I couldn’t avoid. I didn’t have a choice.”
“That’s bullshit, Anton, and you know it. She was malleable, naïve, innocent. Her love and blind trust in you made her easy pickings. Amber was the girl I should’ve been, and I’m the woman she never became.”
She’s right, of course. It is bullshit. There’s always a choice, and I chose the wrong path, for Amber, for me. It could be different this time.
I could make the right choice now.
Part of me wants to… As cliché as it sounds, I see myself standing at a crossroad with three possible directions open to me. The first is to walk away from Rose, the second is to lock her up until I’ve bled her dry of every last drop of colour that makes her who she is, and the third is an unexplored path where I accept the scraps she gives and hope to fucking God it’s enough.
The heavy silence between us pervades the room with everything left unsaid. Can I be a good man and walk away… No!
The thought makes me want to roar at the twisted reality of my life and the man I’ve become. I hate myself even more than I already do knowing that I can’t walk away. My instinct to grab hold of Rose and make her mine in any way possible is strong, unyielding. I won’t walk away, so that leaves only two options; take the pieces she’s willing to share or take everything without her permission.
“Is this when you lock me away, when I don’t have the strength to fight you off?” she asks, her face in shadow, her
voice tight.
There’s the Rose I know, willing to ask the hard questions, to face them head on. The light from the table lamp is low, muted, and I can only see in shades of grey now. In this light, the starkness of white is gone, leaving pitch black lurking in the shadowed corners of the room waiting for the moment to expand and swallow us both.
I shake my head. “No. I promised you I wouldn’t.”
“Promises are made to be broken. Let’s stop this charade, Anton. Are you going to lock me up?”
“I don’t know, Rose.” And for the first time in my life, I really don’t. If she’d asked me an hour ago, my answer would probably have been yes. Now… maybe, just maybe I can be strong enough.
She moves her face into the light so that I can see her more clearly and regards me with a seductive tilt of her head. Just when I think I know who Rose is, she reveals another piece of herself. I thought the memory of Cerulean Blue had weakened her, but once again her strength shows. It’s breathtaking in all its brutality.
I breathe out a sigh of relief.
“I’m not afraid of you,” she says, repeating the words she uttered a few days ago.
Swallowing hard, I nod my head. She really isn’t.
Amber loved me, yes, but there was always fear in her eyes when she looked at me. In some ways she was like a dog who belonged to a violent owner, always loyal and full of love but wary at the same time. Her fear and trust in her love for me didn’t make me feel strong, it made me feel weak. None of that was her fault, God knows it wasn’t, but it’s the truth.
With Rose, I don’t feel weak. I don’t feel a lesser man for being incomplete, broken.
“I don’t fear you,” she repeats.
I don’t think I’ve ever been more in awe of a person than I am right now. My fingers begin to move against my leg as my need to draw her becomes a violent energy. I need to appease it before I do something stupid.
“I want to draw you, Rose? Will you let me do that?” I blurt out, suddenly desperate to capture her this raw, this stripped bare.
“Do what you want, Anton. I’m in no position to argue right now,” she groans, shifting uncomfortably on the bed. She absentmindedly rubs her fingers over the sore knuckle of her hand. Her physical pain a manifestation of the other pain she keeps locked within.
“I don’t have my sketch pad or pencils with me. Do you have anything I can use?” My sudden need to capture her like this has me shaking uncontrollably.
“In my living room there’s some paper and pencils. Nothing like you have in your studio, but they’re yours if you want to use them.” She hauls herself upright, swinging her legs over the side of the bed. “I’m going to take a shower. I feel cold right down to my bones and need to warm up.”
Getting up with a groan, she walks stiffly into her en-suite bathroom, gently shutting the door behind her. I hear her turn on the shower and leave to search for the tools I need to immortalise her forever in my art.
It takes me a few minutes to find what I’m looking for. Clutching the pad of paper and pencil, I return to her bedroom.
“Jesus Christ, Rose,” I exclaim, stopping dead in my tracks.
She’s lying on her bed, naked. Her long legs stretched out, her hand skimming the curve of her hip. Her luscious breasts full but soft. The echoes of her ballet training lie beneath the roundness of her stomach and delicate point of her toes. But I see the harsh reality of her life in the swollen joints of her knee and fingers, and the crease of pain around her eyes as she lies on her side holding a position that I already know is uncomfortable for her.
“You didn’t have to get undressed,” I say uselessly.
She looks at me, not uttering a word, but I understand her silence. She’s laying herself bare for me. She’s giving me another gift, one which I don’t deserve, but will take regardless.
“Okay then,” I murmur.
Using her dressing table stool as a chair, I pull it across the floor and settle myself beside her. With the pencil poised over the blank sheet of paper, I look at Rose.
Really look.
I know her nakedness isn’t a ruse to get me into bed with her. This isn’t about sex, and even though my cock is hard for her, I don’t want to fuck her like I fucked Amber. I don’t.
She doesn’t want to fuck me either.
She wants to be my muse.
She wants me to see.
I start with a rough outline, sketching the dips and hills of her curves and the long length of her legs. Like with all my drawings, I imagine what it would feel like to touch the person I’m drawing. When you don’t have colour to brighten your world other senses are useful to fill in the gaps. Useful, but never enough. At least not for me.
With Rose, I already know the warm smoothness of her hands and the softness of her lips, but everything else is a mystery yet to be unravelled. As I begin to shade in the dark thatch of hair between her legs, I wonder what the curls there feel like, what the plump slash of her pussy would look like opened up to me. As I give more detail to the swell of her breasts, I wonder how soft they feel, how hard her nipples would get if I were to run the pad of my thumb over them. When I draw the hollow above her collarbone, I imagine the warmth emanating from the pulse in her neck just beside it. As her lips part, revealing the darkness of her mouth, I remember the ferocity of our kiss and the dominance of her tongue. When I reach her eyes, eyes that have the ability to both hide a thousand secrets as well as reveal the depths of her soul, I find that I don’t think about the colour they are as I draw, but what beauty they hold without it.
Bit by bit, Rose appears before me and with it my need to do her justice seeps into my blood, pumping it faster and faster around my body. I take in every minute detail. I don’t leave out the truth of who she is. Her knee remains as swollen on paper as it does in real life. Her knuckles just as bent and twisted. The chipped nail polish on her toes evidence of a woman who tries to appear put together but fails sometimes. The tangled mess of wet hair a true reflection of someone who is too exhausted to comb it through, but has enough strength left to bare herself entirely.
In front of me I see Rose, and she is astounding.
An hour after I started, I finally purge my need to capture Rose enough to stop drawing. Placing the pencil behind my ear and resting the pad on the floor by my feet I get up and remove my clothes. The whole time she remains quiet, just watching me as I strip off completely. My cock is painfully hard, my fingers aching from the intensity of my work and my lungs are burning with the need to breathe her in and never exhale, trapping her forever in my chest.
And yet, despite my desire for her, this still isn’t about sex. It’s about so much more.
It’s about devotion.
And she has mine now, every last shred of it.
“Rose, are you in pain?” I ask, wanting so much to soothe her as I settle beside her on the bed. She turns on her back, twisting her head to the side so that our eyes meet. Her mouth is only inches from mine and I so want to kiss her, but I won’t.
“I am,” she responds.
“Where?” My gaze trails over her body, looking for all the spots she hurts, wanting to make them better.
“My knee, my fingers,” she says, lifting up her hands to show me the swollen knuckles. “My lower back and right hip.”
“Let me help you,” I say.
Sitting up, I take her hand in mine and hold it between my palms. Warming her skin with my body heat. Then gently, I begin to massage the palm of her hand, moving my fingers gently over her skin.
“What are you doing, Anton?” she murmurs.
“Helping you, comforting you…” My voice trails off. I know she doesn’t think I’m capable. I know she doesn’t trust me. Who could blame her?
“Killing me with kindness?” she asks, drawing her brows together.
“No, Rose. Forget that person. Forget all of that. Just let me comfort you in this moment, now. Please.”
“You don’t want to fuck me?”
“What’s it about then?”
“Giving me the chance to give instead of take. Right now, I don’t want anything in return, Rose.”
She looks at me for a long, long time. Just when I think she’s going to refuse me, she surprises me once more.
“Fine,” she murmurs.
Squeezing her hand, I allow myself a small smile. This feels like a minor victory. She isn’t trying to dominate me, she’s not even being submissive, she’s just allowing me to comfort her. She’s taking a chance, either because she’s too emotionally and physically depleted, or because she has an ulterior motive that I don’t understand. It doesn’t matter though.
I get the feeling Rose never does tender. Fuck knows I don’t.
This is new for me too.
Yet she stayed with me for five days, never leaving my side. For that alone she deserves just an ounce of kindness in return. Rose might think I was too out of it to remember the gentle touch of her fingers as she swiped my hair off my face or cooled me with a washcloth. She might think that I don’t remember the way her body curled against mine in her sleep as I thrashed about, fighting the torment of my waking nightmares. She might not know how her touch had stilled me, comforted me, kept me sane in moments of blind insanity.
But I remember every moment and I owe her more than I can ever repay. So, for one fucking night I’m going to give and not take.
Moving my fingers upwards I gently massage her swollen knuckles. She watches me intently. I feel her heavy gaze burning into my skin, but I don’t look up, letting her absorb me without distraction. It’s not as if I don’t have her seared into my memory. The small beauty spot just below her eye, the way one eyebrow is arched slightly higher than the other. Her perfect oval face and slightly pointed chin. The long lashes encasing eyes that fucking take my breath away.
“Hmm,” Rose murmurs as my hands move up wrists, my thumb gently swirling over her pulse.