“Please,” I begged. “One month. Let’s give each other one month, and if it doesn’t—”
He stormed off.
This time I could follow.
I chased him to his side of the kingdom, fought him off at his door, and pleaded with every word I had inside of me. But he still made it to his bathroom, and into his cabinet, and managed to produce his box of medication. He held them over me with a glassy-eyed defiance. It was so final, my heart dropped.
“Go turn on the tub.”
“No!” I screamed, wrapping my arms around his body as if this would prevent the inevitable tide I could feel around me.
He shook me off and nudged me away with his elbow. “It’s done.”
I grabbed his face between my hands, and poured my soul into his eyes. “Please don’t do this.” I knew he’d deny me, the way he always had, and if he did, I had no backup plan. This medicine was the only way I’d ever get through to him.
“I didn’t bring this medicine to comfort myself.”
“You brought it for me. Because you know how bad you can get. Locking the woman that you love in a tower is pretty damn bad, Dash. But it can get worse. You can get worse.”
He looked back into my eyes, pouring his own soul into them. The depth of it knocked me off balance. “No, I can’t. Having the woman that I love search for an exit after making love to me all day is worse. Please move. I don’t want to fight with you anymore. Once the pills are gone, so is any idea that you’ll ever leave.”
And I could argue. I could demand he listen. Instead, I stepped aside, because Dash’s soul was so broken the sight of it had devoured mine.
I watched as he filled his tub, and then one by one he opened the caps and dumped his medicine into the water. The pills cascaded into the water like a final plea going unheard. They disintegrated like any hope that I would ever escape. The brokenness in his eyes looked the same as the emptiness in my dreams. Once the pills were gone, he drained the tub, put the empty box back with its empty contents, and then turned and looked at me.
“You can’t get out of here without me. When it comes time to go, we’ll either walk out of here together, or not at all.”
“You’re sick.”
“Look in the mirror, my queen.”
I stared at his bare back as he left. “Maybe I am sick,” I called out, stomping after him. “Anyone would have to be to love you.”
He continued to cook as if he hadn’t just gotten rid of the only chance at sanity, as if he hadn’t gutted me the moment our brokenness collided. I felt overwhelmed and afraid. The tide turned, taking me away from shore. There was something missing now that the medicine was gone. There was danger, but there was illness, and they weren’t the same thing. The storm outside the window cracked in the air, lighting the kingdom in silver before thunder shook the sky.
“Not too close,” Dash ordered, when I went to watch.
I stood with my nose pressed to the glass. Lightning flashed through the sky, reflecting Dash in the glass. He was glaring at me, but not in the way Denny always had. His eyes were tight, concerned, because Dash hadn’t betrayed me.
“Please, Kinley. Get away from the window.”
I pressed my palm to the glass as the thunder rumbled. The sky opened up, and rain poured from the clouds. The kingdom was in the middle of a storm, and all I could think about was how much different a storm looked when you were smack dab in the middle of the eye. Just as I stepped away from the glass, lightning cut through the rain, making me jump. I wasn’t afraid of storms. I’d been born and raised in Chicago, and storms were a part of my life.
Dash waited until I was seated at the bar to finish cooking. He poured the jarred sauce into the pasta. He divided out two equal servings, produced two forks, and then brought them both over to the bar.
“Thank you.” I looked sideways as he placed my bowl of pasta down in front of me. What, no lipstick? Glaring, I gave in to what I wanted. I titled my face toward him, mortified that he would look at me the way Denny had.
Like I was so worse than anything he’d ever imagined.
But Dash just pressed his lips to mine softly. He sat down beside me and dug in, shoveling spaghetti noodles into his mouth. I wasn’t all that hungry—I could still see his pills melting—but I twirled pasta on my fork anyway. For a few moments those were the only sounds. Pasta, slurps, and swallowing.
“It’s all right to want me,” he murmured, staring at his food. “To ask for a kiss, to want one in the first place. You love me, Kinley. I want you to show it. I need you to.”
“If it’s all right to want you, then why won’t you try it sane?”
Outside thunder roared.
Inside it wasn’t any different.
He popped his neck from side to side, and then picked up his fork, shoving all thoughts of sanity out of the room. Just as I had in his bathroom, I felt his brokenness engage my own. I could sense that if I kept pushing this time, he’d break in a way I couldn’t fix.
So I pushed the pills from my mind. They were gone. He was ill. There were walls, and all talk of a sound mind was no longer necessary.
“I’ll clean up,” I offered quietly, taking his bowl when his fork hit the empty center. I walked both our dishes to the sink, and combined them with the pot of still hot pasta water. I poured the water on the dishes. Steam floated around us, creating a thin barrier between his rage and my defiance. Unease settled in my belly. I was pushing at a man who wasn’t going to push back. Lighting lit up the side of his face, making him look sinister. “Dash,” I breathed. “I’m sorry.”
He continued to stare. The muscles in his body were tensed, not in warning, but in an effort to keep himself from snapping. Silver shadowed one side of his face, and darkness the other. And for the first time since I’d woken up in this tower, I accepted that there was a huge chance that Dash might be right. I couldn’t get out without him. He wasn’t leaving. Which meant neither was I.
But the gold in his eyes was alive with emotion, and after my nightmare, what more could I want but to make him feel this love?
I walked around the bar and stood behind him. I wrapped my arms around him. I rested my cheek on his bare shoulder. I kissed him there as I felt his abs and chest with my hands. His heat melted against my skin. The scent of his skin and hair made me shove my nose into his dark locks, inhaling him. Skimming my nose along his neck, I felt the intensity in him slowly diminish. I found his pulse and kissed where it pounded the hardest. “I chose you.” Lust swept over me, making the taste of his skin delectable. I caressed my tongue down his shoulder, and nipped at him with my teeth. “Truth?”
His breathing had become erratic. He nodded against me.
“If they look up, we’ll see them coming.” I twined my fingers in his hair. I used the grip I had to pull his head back.
He moaned around his groan. His eyes were closed and his lips were parted. “From 110 floors.”
I kissed his mouth deep and hard, until my panties were damp and his tongue was starving. “Let’s go to bed.” In bed, in his arms, beneath his body, this nightmare wasn’t so terrifying. It was the only time anything made sense.
I let his hair go and his head fell forward. I walked to his side of the kingdom without waiting to check if he followed. I undressed when I entered his room, kicking my shorts off, my tank top too. In my lace panties and bra, I fell on his black sheets and immersed myself in the darkness of his bedroom. His body fell on top of mine. I did my best to fight my choice. Not because I didn’t want it, but because I knew in my bones I’d only ever know Dash the way I did now.
In a tower.
Submerged in lies and truth and lust and darkness.
Inside of a nightmare.
“Tell me what you want.” His mouth left a heated trail along my jaw as his weight encompassed me.
In the darkness it wasn’t as hard to tell the truth. “You outside of this tower.”
“But we’re inside together. We can love each oth
er anywhere, Kinley. That’s why it’s love.”
He didn’t get it. He didn’t understand that we would never be anywhere else but inside these walls. He did that when he took me. He shattered any chance of later to have right now. And that he didn’t understand was his illness. When his illness cleared before it took him again, he’d understand that he ruined us. He ruined us long before I did. My chest burned from the pain of losing him. All of my life I’d been a solitary force floating away on my own. There was never anyone who’s fire burned as hot as mine. Whose hunger was just as starved. Until I met the man on top of me.
Then I knew true hunger.
Because he felt it too.
“Don’t cry,” he begged, kissing at my tears until he found my eyes. They slid shut as he kissed my lids gently. He pressed a kiss to my forehead, and between my eyes, down my nose, and finally settled on my lips. “There is no place that would make my lips on your skin any different. Rise.”
I lifted my back, and his fingers slipped around to unhook my bra. It fell away. He pulled it down my arms and dropped it somewhere in the dark. His lips kissed down my throat, to the top of my chest, and settled on my breasts. With a hot wet pull, his lips sucked my nipple into his mouth. The sensation shot to my clitoris, making my back arch. He rolled my hard bud between his teeth as I moaned beneath him. I loved the feeling of him on top of me, wanting me, devouring me.
His tongue left a hot trail down my stomach, and he nipped at my hipbones before doing the same to my pussy through my panties. I felt him kiss me through the thin material, until finally he wedged his tongue between my dampened lips and inserted it through my panties. It was a tiny spark of pleasure to an otherwise starving body.
When he peeled my panties down my legs, I had my legs open for him before they left my ankles. His tongue prodded my slick core before plunging inside of me. He purposely ignored my clitoris. He lapped at my wetness, make me slick of both our excitement, and bit down on my sensitive flesh, but he never got close to my clit.
“Don’t move. I’m going to go get some toys.”
The moment he left me my heart crashed. Tears formed, and I knew I was in so much fucking trouble I didn’t even want to think about what would happen when this tower was gone. I searched in the dark for him, swiping my hand through the blackness. I could hear movement, but could not see him.
“Asshole,” I said into the dark.
“What?” His deep voice rumbled from somewhere.
“You heard me.” I wiped at my eyes in disgust.
Queen’s don’t cry.
I glared into the dark.
A few moments later, I felt him return. The moment he did, I slid from the bed to where he was on the ground, and wrapped my arms around him. The storm in me ebbed, and the one outside couldn’t get to us in here.
“What is it?” His arms held me against his bare chest. I could feel his thighs on me, and assumed he’d taken his jeans off. We were bare. Skin to skin. No walls or lies. It was just Kinley and Dash. And I had never been happier to be so naked. “Did I do something wrong?”
“Yes,” I whispered, inhaling his skin.
“May I ask what? You seemed to be enjoying yourself.” Amusement deepened his voice.
“You made me love you. And now we can’t even exist anywhere else but inside of these walls.”
“We can exist anywhere. Love can’t be trapped. It’s not in danger. Only we are. And I’m going to protect you.” He kissed my temple, whispering in my ear. “Go lay down.”
I shook my head, tightening my hold on him. I had this nagging fear that if I let go, it might be for forever.
He gave my hips a shove. “Go.”
I wrapped my legs around his waist.
“Kinley. You made me love you too. I am … afraid too.” When I didn’t make a move, he sighed into my hair in defeat. With me attached to his body, he managed to lift us both to the bed. He lay on his back and I lay across his chest; our legs tangled. “We existed before we made love in your office, didn’t we?”
“We barely touched.”
“We touched.” He sounded indignant now. “We hugged goodbye sometimes. You’d wrap your body around mine, and I wanted you so much Kinley—” He couldn’t finish, clearing the emotion from his throat. “Having you in my arms for those few seconds was the only thing that got me through my day. I thought about you all day and night. In my office, during meetings, when I ate, when I slept, when I showered, when I felt like I would break under the pressure and the weight of evil in my brain. You’d laugh sometimes. The sound of your laugh was rare, but it made it easier to breathe.”
I sobbed against his chest. It all came down to one thing. And that was cheating. I cheated. I’d wanted Dash so badly, I couldn’t cancel his appointments. I lived for him too. “I thought about you when I showered too.”
He chuckled knowingly. “What would you think about?”
“Your deep voice.”
“You like the sound of my voice?” He sounded surprised.
“I love the sound of your voice.”
“Interesting.” He cleared his throat. “What else did you think about?”
“Your lips. Your cologne. I would smell you even when you weren’t there.” I missed his cologne.
“What else?”
“I’d fantasize about the taste of them. About how much I wanted to leave Denny. Going home to him every night wasn’t easy.” I shook my head against him, bawling senselessly as I thought of the dark disgust that clung to the six months I spent sleeping beside Denny. “Sometimes to sleep, I’d have to imagine that you were beside me. Or you were thinking about me. Or I’d think about the one time we were together.”
And that was all gone.
I let go on top of him, missing him so badly I couldn’t breathe.
“It wasn’t easy for me either,” I snapped. “I wanted you, Dash. I loved you, and I wanted you. But I can’t do that to people. I can’t cheat and leave and hurt them. I knew that if I gave in I’d lose everything I’d worked for, and maybe that was selfish. Maybe that was ugly. You have no idea how deep I was in with Denny, how much my dreams were his leash. I couldn’t just walk away. But I wanted to. I wanted you more than I’d ever wanted anything in my entire life.” I couldn’t stop. “I’m sorry I pushed you away. I’m so sorry.” I rose onto my elbows to meet his tortured eyes. In the dark they were shimmering gold. “I fell in love with you the second you walked into my office. When I was with you, all I could think about was you. Not how my body ached from Denny’s fists. How no matter what I did I was always broke. How Denny looked at me like I was worthless and disgusting. You kept me alive when he tried to ruin me. Thank you so much for keeping me alive.”
His eyes slid shut. Tears clung to his lashes. I pressed the side of my face to his. His arms held me so tightly my breaths hurt. I deserved it. The same way I deserved Denny’s blows. But Dash’s fists would never hurt me. His hands were just trying to keep me.
“I’m so tired of fighting you.” I kissed his lips.
“You aren’t fighting me. You’re fighting yourself.”
Maybe he was right. Maybe that’s why the fight was never far from over.
“Give yourself a break.”
In the quiet, I heard his whisper in the parts of me that were as starving as his. I nodded against his chest, and settled down, trying to piece together a small shred of calm.
“I love you, Dash. I want to be with you. I want to hold you, kiss you, and feel you. I don’t want to fight anymore. I don’t want to be in this tower, but I want to be free of it with you. All I want is you.”
It took him a moment to reply, and when he did, it was a deep low rumble. “The toys are waiting.” His hands slid down to cup my ass. “And so am I.”
I wouldn’t fight him anymore.
Me.
I wouldn’t fight this.
I fell away from his body and onto my back. He hovered over me, kissing down my stomach. “I’m sorry he hit you. I�
�m sorry he bruised your beautiful soft skin.” He kissed over my belly button. “I’m sorry he punished you for something that wasn’t your fault.” He continued lower. “But I’m not sorry for loving you. I’m not sorry for taking what was mine.” He urged my legs apart, leaving me waiting as he picked through his kinky toys. Soon, I felt him close to me. “Shh,” he soothed, when I jerked. Something cold and hard pressed to my clitoris, and then he tugged it between my labia, and attached it behind my ass. He moved what I assumed to be a string from between my labia, and then placed a kiss to my inner thigh. “Ready?”
“What is it?” Freak.
My freak.
“It’s going to stimulate your clitoris while I stimulate your g-spot. When you’re relaxed and stretched, I’m going to insert every inch of my cock inside of you. Every inch with no fight. You won’t fight me, will you, my queen?”
I was still sore from the last time he’d been inside, but hunger rushed over me, and I just wanted to be with him however he wanted to be with me. “No.”
In response, the hard object pressing into my clit began to warm. “We’ll start with heat first.”
“Oh,” I gasped, feeling the heat melt into my sensitive spot.
“Relax. Let it warm you and relax you. Come again and again. I’m not taking this off until you’re full of my semen.”
I imagined being full of him, and arched, letting the heat warm me. As it did, it began to pulse slowly. Every five or ten seconds it would pulse, applying just the right amount of pleasure to my clit. “You’re so kinky,” I moaned, looking between my legs. My eyes had adjusted, and I could make out his pale body, but not the toys within his reach.
His teeth grazed my inner thigh. “This is nothing. Wait until I’m in your ass, pussy, and mouth.”
I laughed breathlessly, burrowing down in his sheets. My tears dried. It was the way I always wanted it. Dash and nothing else. “Sounds like a tight fit.”
“I’ll manage.” Something cool and metal touched my pussy. “This is cold.” I gasped when he eased the thin object inside of me. “More heat on your clit.” Warmth increased, and so did the pulsing. “A little vibration.” A humming began inside of me. “You’re so wet. My kinks are yours too.”
A Beautiful Nightmare: A Novel Page 18