by L.J. Shen
After I manage to strip him down to his briefs, I throw his heavy arm over my shoulder and pull him up, using all the strength I possess. My quads burn under his weight as I lead him to his bedroom. We bump into things on the way, but I don’t think he is conscious enough to notice. He is freezing, and he is always so hot. It terrifies me.
Once he’s in bed, I turn the radiator on and jog to the bathroom, coming back with a towel. I start to pat him dry everywhere, then tuck him under the duvet like a burrito, wrapping him like a mummy.
“Tea and flu medicine are on their way. Don’t go anywhere,” I joke—because he’s unconscious and can’t hear a thing—running off to the kitchen like a headless chicken.
I flick the kettle on, unscrew the bottles, then turn the kettle on. (Again? Again!) I head back to the bedroom with a glass of water, waiting for the water in the kitchen to boil.
“Heat up, heat up, heat up,” I chant to myself as I run my palm close to the radiator to check for warmth. Nothing.
“Electricity is down in the entire village.” Mal coughs, rolling in bed. His voice is so weak I can barely hear him. “Don’t bother.”
This is why the kettle didn’t work. I shove the pills and water in his face, trying not to appear as frazzled as I feel.
“Drink.”
He perches himself against the headboard and dutifully swallows the pills, not bothering with the water. Did I mention he is green? Yes. Because he is. He is shaking, too. And I, the girl who is always cold, am responsible for making him an icicle. He gave me his jacket in the pouring rain when I felt like running away spontaneously—barefoot and underdressed in the middle of the night. He slept in the living room for me, with nothing to shield him from the cold.
“We need to get you to the hospital.”
“In this storm? Fat chance, Rory. It’s probably overcrowded, anyway. Christmas fecks all the drunks up, and winter does the rest.”
“Why did you have to leave?” I seethe, trying to gain control of my temper. “What kind of stupid asshole wakes up in the morning sick as a dog and decides to take a long-ass stroll in the rain?”
My New Jersey-based bad cop is slipping into my speech, and I bare my teeth at him. I tuck the edges of his blanket under the mattress, again caging him to the bed.
He doesn’t answer, just presses his eyes shut. His chest is barely moving. I stand up and go to Richards’ bedroom to grab another quilt for him.
When I come back, he looks:
Ashen
Dead
I run a finger under his nostrils. He is still breathing, but barely. Cold mist covers his skin. My entire body turns rigid.
Be okay. I can’t lose you, too.
“Fuck you.” I feel the tears prickling my eyes as I begin to undress.
He needs body heat. He needs body heat, and for the first time in a long time, I am actually not cold. My blood is boiling with fury at what he did to himself. At what I did to him. I dump my clothes by his bed, leaving on only my white cotton panties—I never bothered to wear a bra or brush my teeth, things were too hectic today—and slide in next to him.
I think he is out of it enough that he doesn’t even realize when I roll him to his side and clasp my arm and leg over him. His heart beats against mine, dull and weak, struggling to keep up with the rest of his body. Hot tears run down my cheeks.
Everything is falling apart. Summer was right. I am naked in bed with him—only not for the reason she thinks. I can’t let him die in the name of loyalty to Callum. Richards is a runaway, my boyfriend is in another country, Mal is a widower (and possibly bipolar?)—plus, surprise! He kept the napkin—and there’s this huge secret hovering over my head, but I can’t seem to untangle it from the cloud of lies and deceit that follows my every step in Ireland.
I rub the length of his bulging arms, up and down, up and down. I press my forehead to his lips to check his breath and temperature. His pulse is slow, his breathing labored. I wonder if I should take his phone and call someone.
I sing him a lullaby my mother sang to me when I was a kid to help me fall asleep. Honestly. It was the only beautiful thing she ever did for me. It always soothed me and calmed me down.
“Oh blow the winds o’er the ocean/ and the trees, and the seas/ and the little pigeon, that never sleeps.”
Mal groans, his eyes still closed. A sign of life.
“Rory.”
“Yes?” I ask hopefully.
“You’re terrible, darlin’. Please stop.”
Then he is completely out of it, leaving me to shake with laughter next to him, so entwined I can feel him everywhere on my body.
“You’re a total pain in the ass, Doherty,” I mumble into his chest.
Goosebumps rise along his smooth, bronze flesh, and I smile. I doubt he can hear me, but I know the gooseflesh is him responding to what I’m saying.
“You make everything so hard.” I sigh, and as I say it, I realize he is hard.
One of my legs is thrown over his, and his penis is pressed against my groin. It’s hot and velvety and swollen, even behind his briefs. I shudder, closing my eyes, feeling the delicious clench inside of me. I open my eyes again to glance at him. But he’s not pretending. He really is dead to the world.
And he is getting warmer. Because of me. The ice queen.
“Of course, you would be hard when I say that. You always had the sense of humor of a cabbage,” I add as an afterthought.
He lets out a soft snore, his body tilting away from me, heavy with sleep, but I’m not ready to let go. I press my thigh harder against him, tightening my grip.
“Please get better, Mal. Please, please, so I can sing you lullabies you hate and read your songs and give you shit about the napkin and ask you a million questions.”
I don’t know why I’m talking. It’s obvious Mal is not going to answer. Somehow, I manage to doze off in his arms, too tired now to eat the food I left on the counter.
I wake up a couple hours later. The winter blankets the sky, dim and black, but it’s still not nighttime. I glance at Mal’s face. He seems to be sleeping peacefully, and some of the color has returned to his face. One good thing is that he is very, very hot and sweaty against me. He is fighting the fever off, his hair sticking to his forehead and the nape of his neck.
His dick is still wonderfully erect. Okay, time to untangle, call Callum, and tell him I’m coming to England. No way I’m staying here when Ashton is a continent away and Mal is hard and beautiful and available and kept the napkin. Mom might be a handful, but that doesn’t mean she’s not right. Mal is trouble, and I’m not a huge fan of trouble anymore.
I try to withdraw from his body, only to find he’s now the one with his arm clasped over me, and not vice versa. I slide to the edge of the bed, but Mal clasps my arm. I gasp and turn to look at him.
He smirks, his eyes still closed.
Bastard.
“Going somewhere fancy?” he inquires, his voice deep and rich and gravelly.
Pouty, broken-boy charm has always been my kryptonite, and when he is Imperfect Mal, the urge to love him overwhelms me.
Food for thought, though: Kryptonite also has the power to completely destroy Superman.
“Yeah,” I say. “England. To meet my boyfriend’s parents.”
These plans have been brewing in my head for a while, but I’ve yet to do anything about them. Now something tells me it’s time I should. Must, if I want to save my relationship.
His eyes are still closed, his smile widening.
Did he listen to what I just said? Maybe he woke up with brain damage. Poor soul. But I’m sure there are women lining up to take care of his screwed-up self. There are two types of women—the ones who want to save, and the ones who want to be saved. The entire population of the former would take Mal and his goodie bag of issues happily.
“Stop smiling.” I groan.
“Why? Life is beautiful.”
“Is that so?” I quirk an eyebrow. I think—I think—he
just rolled his hips against my groin, essentially pushing his dick between my legs, but I can’t tell for sure, because the movement is very gentle. What I am sure of is the fact that I’m drenched to the bone and currently clenching my womb, wishing his throbbing member was in my tunnel. And yes, I just said throbbing member in my head, because admitting the obvious—I am insanely, deliriously in lust with him—is hard to swallow.
There’s heat swirling in my lower belly, and if I don’t escape this bed right now, I will do something I won’t be able to forgive myself for.
His eyes pop open, purple and bright and full of mischief. It’s like he woke up a new, healthy man. The tables have turned again, and now I’m the one at his mercy.
“Are we still doing this I-have-a-boyfriend routine? Because Shiny Boyfriend lost the girl the minute you found the napkin.”
I get out of bed and walk out of his room, flipping him the finger without turning around. Screw him and screw Tolka. Screw his goddamn grandfather (sorry, God) and the unpredictable Ashton Richards and Jeff Ryner himself.
I head to the living room, unzipping my suitcase and rummaging through my stuff for an appropriate flight outfit.
After a moment I see Mal sauntering into the living room, lazy and confident and OH MY GOD, WHY CAN’T YOU BE UGLY?
“You might want to reconsider that.” He picks up his cigarette-holed Joy Division white tee from the floor, but doesn’t put it on.
“Oh, yeah?” I park a fist on my waist. “Why?”
“Because you’re naked, and although I’d personally pay good money to keep you in that state, there are rules to abide by in this wonderful country.”
I look down at my naked body, then up at him, frowning. I pick up the first thing in my vicinity—the triangle sandwich I never ate—and throw it at him. He catches it in one hand, cracks it open, and takes a bite. Dammit.
“You kept the napkin and you didn’t tell me!” I ignore my stomach, which at this stage is glued to my inner organs, screaming for food. Guess that’s what happens when you’re too busy having three internal meltdowns and an anxiety attack due to emotional overflow. You forget to eat.
Mal shrugs, putting his shirt on and taking another bite, talking with his mouth full. “You wouldn’t have come here if I had.”
“Because I wanted out of our contract!” I yell, throwing my chocolate bar at him.
I should really stop doing that. I really am hungry, and the electricity is still down, and I don’t trust any of the glitzy, organic, gluten-free, sugar-free, taste-free stuff Richards’ people crammed the fridge with anyway.
Mal catches the chocolate bar in his spare hand, tearing the wrapper with his straight, white teeth and biting off a chunk.
“That’s not how contracts work, darlin’,” he notes, chewing vigorously.
“Where have you been?” I ask again. “Whose birthday did you go to?”
He tilts his chin down and stares at me seriously. “You’ll find out when you’re ready.”
“Fine. Next question. Why are you screwing Maeve? She’s a married woman.”
“Same answer. There’s a reason, but I need to ease you back into my life. A lot has changed, and I don’t want to overwhelm you.”
“I don’t want to be in your life!” Only I do, and I hate the discourse between my heart and my brain. “And even if I did, you screwing Maeve didn’t earn you any brownie points.”
“Well…” He pushes off the wall and stalks toward me, disposing of the sandwich on the coffee table without breaking his stride. “Shagging her still, while we’re together, has never been the plan. Honestly, she was a bit of a one-off. I hadn’t…” He pauses, poking his lower lip out, trying to figure out how to say it. “I hadn’t been with anyone in quite some time. And even if I was that sort of person, I’m not a cheater.”
I shake my head. “Me neither, and I sure as hell don’t plan on starting now.”
“Oh…” His smile drops. “But darlin’, you already have.”
I blink at him like he’s crazy. Because he is. Completely mental, as they say in this neck of the woods.
“What the hell are you talking about?” I unzip my suitcase frantically, fishing for some clothes. I can feel my hands shaking, and I don’t know how to stop them.
He places his foot on the suitcase above me, slamming it shut with a thud and preventing me from getting dressed, and that’s when I realize he is still without pants. Just his shirt and briefs, and the mammoth erection pressing against them, pointing at me.
“You’ve already been in bed with me. Mostly naked. You’ve already had your wet-as-feck panties pressed against my cock—and yes, I noticed, thank you very much. You’ve already masturbated to the sound of me plunging into Maeve—imagining it was you, by the way, forever the romantic. Face it, Rory. Emotionally, you didn’t only cheat on Shiny Boyfriend, you basically fucked his entire immediate family, pet parrot, and rude neighbors.”
I rise to my feet, and angry blood whooshes between my ears. I’m no longer chilly. My cheeks are aflame with shame and mortification. He heard me coming from the next room. Of course, he did. The only reason he interrupted Callum and me in the first place was because his walls are paper-thin.
“Mal…” I take a step back, raising a finger in warning. “I don’t want you.”
“You don’t want me?” He takes a step forward, crowding me toward the kitchen. “Or you don’t want to want me? There’s a difference.”
“How is it different?” I play into his game, mainly so he’ll talk and not do something else to me I won’t be able to stop.
“Well, if you simply don’t want me, I have no choice but to respect that.”
He closes the distance between us, and my back bumps against the cold fridge. His bare body is flush against mine, and my heart is pounding so fast and hard, I think it’s about to leap out of my mouth, like a fish, if I open it to tell him not to touch me.
But Mal doesn’t touch me.
He almost touches me, knowing it frustrates me even more.
He gets in my face, smirking. “But if you don’t want to want me, then I’m sorry, but I’m not going to let you screw up both our lives because you feel committed to a guy you aren’t sure about to prove a point nobody cares about.”
“I got in bed with you because you were freezing. I haven’t cheated on Callum.” I shake my head, reminding him. Reminding myself.
My eyes drop to his lips, and there’s a fireball growing in my lower stomach, a sensation akin to nothing I’ve ever experienced.
You will never forgive yourself.
He leans forward, regarding me with thinly veiled amusement. I feel his hot breath on my face when he speaks. “You just did the right thing by me, right?”
“Right.” I nod with gusto. “Exactly.”
“Do you know this rumor?” He frowns thoughtfully, his hand snaking into my panties in one smooth motion.
I gasp, reaching for his arm, but he grabs my wrist and pins it to the wall with one hand, his expression unchanged by my resistance.
“About Mick Jagger and Marianne Faithfull in 1967? When they were allegedly caught in Keith Richards’ estate during a drug raid, while he ate a Mars bar out of her cunt?”
I feel something shoved into me and think, oh, God. Oh, Jesus. The chocolate bar is inside me. It’s so filthy and crass, I want to spit in his face, but I can’t help but shiver with pleasure, clenching around the thing.
“Do you think there’s truth to that rumor?” Mal’s lips are practically moving on mine now.
I can feel my puckered nipples rubbing against his body. My breathing is so labored, I am practically heaving. It feels like I’m tipping over an edge of something huge, like I am never going to be the same again.
“I think—” I start.
He pushes the chocolate bar in and out, in and out, thrusting it inside me deeper and faster, and I squeeze my eyes shut and hate myself, because I’m about to come.
You’re cheating on
your boyfriend, I scream inwardly. He is making a point, and you are falling for it. Tell him to stop.
“Answer?” Mal asks indifferently, his lips still ghosting mine. “Yes? No? Maybe? Unsure?”
“St…st…sto…”
“Say it,” he urges, his lips crushing mine, but not kissing them—punishing, more like. “Tell me to stop, and I will.”
I can’t do it.
I can’t do it, and I break down in tears as wave after wave of pleasure begins to crash over me, head to toe, and I’m coming hard against the chocolate bar. It’s the ultimate sensation of pleasure and pain, but the guilt thrown into this makes it somehow, shamefully, even more erotic.
My knees buckle, but Mal keeps me on my feet, his hand clasping the back of my neck as he withdraws what’s left of the chocolate bar slowly. I can feel my sticky thighs gluing together, the gooey, melted milk chocolate dense over my flesh.
Mal lifts the bar between us, and it’s ruined, molten, the white waffle sticking out.
“Hungry?” he asks coolly.
I shake my head, feeling my tears fly everywhere.
I cheated on Callum, just like my mom cheated on the guy she left behind for Glen. I’m no better than her.
Mal takes a bite of the chocolate, shrugging, and suddenly, my mouth waters. I am so, so hungry. Without asking me again, he angles the bar toward my mouth.
“Tastes like you.” He licks his lips.
I take a tentative bite, then another one. I finish off the bar. I barely have time to swallow before his lips crash down on mine, and I moan into his mouth, helpless.
I wish I could rewire my thoughts back to my boyfriend. Or that Callum was an abusive, awful man who had it coming. But this is not the case.
But the truth is, I can’t.
The truth is, I don’t think I ever could, even before I met Mal in New York again. The cracks were always there, weeds slipping through them, even when Callum and I were a normal couple facing normal issues. I always compared him to Mal. I longed to feel Mal’s lips on mine, his heady scent wrapped around me like a collar, owning me without even trying. The difference was, I didn’t feel guilty, because the possibility of that ever happening seemed unlikely.