I forget all about the yoga breathing. “Given what he did to me, he’s hardly in a position to choose the where and the when.”
Ziggy shuffles on his feet and lowers his head. With my Jimmy Choos on, I’m taller than him.
“Listen, Zach is my best friend and I can’t stand seeing him like that.” I open my mouth to argue my case, but he goes on, “He screwed up with you but I know the man he is now. I love him and I respect him. He works hard and despite the business he’s in,” Ziggy rolls his eyes around us, “he’s clean and keeps his head screwed on his shoulders. Zach will go to the ends of the earth for his friends because we’re like family to him.”
“Obviously I haven’t even graduated to the friend-zone since Zach didn’t go as far as to tell me the truth.” I struggle to control my voice and it sounds high-pitched to my own ears. I’m so tired with that war between my head and my heart.
“You’re hurt, Lenor. I get it, but when you are with him,” he points at the door, “try and find it inside yourself.”
“Find what?”
“Forgiveness.”
“Why should I?” Why should I let my heart win?
“Because however you choose to move forward, with him or without him, you will both need to move on to be happy. I want Zach to fall in love—to be with the love of his life. That’s not going to happen if you don’t resolve this.”
For a moment, I wrestle with the idea of Zach in love with a girl, a faceless one, and I resent her deeply already. I shake off the image. “The ‘moving forward’ to ‘move on’ is what got me in the mess I’m currently in. I was ready to forget how Zach hurt me five years ago… and look where I am now.”
Ziggy gives me a faint smile and opens the door. I run my clammy hands over the sides of my jeans and try to swallow the lump in my throat. It doesn’t go away but I’ve already stepped inside his office.
“Zig, bon sang, frappes a la porte avant d’entrer.” Knock before entering for fucks sake.
Zach throws a file down on his desk. His voice sounds sharp and tired, with an edge that brings me back to that summer. I step out from behind Ziggy to make myself seen. Our gazes lock and I fight to keep my balance. My instinct is to narrow that gap between us, to stretch my arm and brush with my fingertips the corner of his right eye. I can’t let that happen so I order my feet to stay rooted to the same spot.
Zach blinks as if he’s trying to make sure his eyes aren’t playing tricks on him.
“I’ll leave the two of you alone.” Ziggy leaves the room but not without sending me one last pointed look. I’m not the guilty one here. Still, the sound of the door clicking behind me has me shuffling my feet on the marble floor. The room is already small and it feels like the walls around me are gradually shifting inwards. Zach’s eyes are trained on me and I force myself to ignore the pain in them. For a split second, I know I can destroy him.
He stands up and circles his desk. He steps towards me but freezes, and I know he has forced himself to stay back. He perches on the edge of the desk, his fingers gripping the edge tightly.
My brain must have switched into panic mode because all the perfectly constructed sentences I had queued up are now a random jumble of unrelated words.
“You came,” Zach states and I hear both the relief and the dread tainting his words.
“I want to know the truth, the whole truth.” I purse my lips before continuing, “And I want to hear it from you.”
Zach lowers his head and he rubs his eyes. I give a silent cringe because his bruised skin there still looks raw.
“Lenor…” his voice breaks. “I’m not sure I still know what the truth is.”
“You won’t get away that easily,” I snap.
“I don’t want to get away with anything. I don’t want to get away from you. That’s the last thing I want.” He has hammered out every single word.
I shut my eyes to pool all my courage. “Tell me,” I say. “Tell me everything.”
Even with my eyes closed, I can see the silence stretching out between us, taut and heavy. Everything inside me rebels against staying.
“Your father told the truth. He found us that night, took your mother away, and asked me never to come close to you again.” Zach gives a bitter chuckle. “Not that I had any intention to. I guess I still had a scrap of decency left in me.”
A tear filters through my eyelid and traces its lonely way down my cheek. I let it reach my upper-lip and taste its saltiness. I force my eyes open to face the pain head on. “Was it the first time?”
“We kissed on the day of my mother’s funeral.”
How can it hurt so bad? I muffle a sob and shame makes me want to hide inside myself. The ‘how’ and ‘when’ shouldn’t matter so much.
“You slept with my mother.” It sounds like a carefully worded challenge when all I really want to do is shout.
Zach jumps to his feet. “I didn’t.” He lifts his arm as if that would be enough to reach me across the void between us. He keeps his gaze fixed on the tips of his fingers until his arm falls limply to his side.
“I didn’t,” he repeats. “Not that it changes anything, but we didn’t have sex.”
I fight the images shooting through my mind and the urge to retch. But I’ve gone too far to back out now. So I take a deep breath, square my shoulders, and ask for the ultimate truth I’ve come to seek, “Do you love her?”
Zach shudders. A shadow passes across his face, one that looks a lot like surprise, then he frowns, “I do not.” He steps forward and, without giving me time to retreat, comes so close his scent—musky, lemony—wraps itself around me. He seizes my upper arms and I don’t resist. “I never have. I never will.”
“Liar!” I spit.
He shakes his head. “I’m not lying.”
“She came to Paris to be with you. Tell me that’s not true then.”
“Lenor, your mom was confused. She was clinically depressed and when I saw her in the Hamptons—”
“You came to see her?”
“I came to see you… last April. But it was too late. The day I talked to Louise was the very day of your engagement party and it was the first time I laid my eyes on her in five years. I swear to God.”
I feel the disgust distorting my face. “But since then, I’m sure you’ve laid many other parts of your body all over hers.”
I fidget but his hold on me strengthens. “No.” He lowers himself so that his gaze levels with mine. “That night on Renegade was the last time something physical happened between Louise and me.”
“Then why did she come to Paris? Why did she ask for a divorce?”
“After I saw her last April, she started obsessing about me and that obsession spiraled out of control at the same time as the pills.”
I lift my hands and throw his fingers away from me. I retreat until my back hits the door. “She came to live in Paris. For you. You even had the security codes to our house. That’s how you managed to get in the morning she OD’d. Did the two of you used to screw each other at our place? When I was sleeping under the same fucking roof? Did that turn you on?” I’ve been screaming, my voice matches the storm raging inside my heart. This isn’t me talking, it’s my anger, my hurt, my destroyed pride. They’re easier to confront that disappointment, loss, and sadness.
“Please… Please, don’t say that.” Zach is begging now. He steps forward again. I flatten my back against the door. “Please, don’t say that,” he repeats.
I notice the shine in his eyes and I feel it. I feel his pain, which makes me angry. He has no right burdening me with his. Anger shoots through the muscles of my arm, giving it a life of its own. I lift it and with as much momentum as I can gather, my hand flows to his face and slaps his cheek.
Silence follows and air becomes trapped inside my lungs. His expression doesn’t change, although my ring has cut through the skin at the corner of his mouth. A small trickle of blood appears there.
“God.” My own lips are burning. “God.�
� This isn’t what I’ve come for, but for the life of me, I can’t repair the ransacked emotions inside me. Words pop up in my head—pride, leaving, forgetting—but no rational thoughts are born from them. All I can feel, all I can see, all I care for is him. Zach.
Zach who betrayed me. Zach for whom I keep betraying myself.
Tonight is the end of us, of whatever we had, whatever we shared. The end of our tainted dream.
And I need him. I need him one last time.
Chapter 25
I take one step toward him, one that places my body in line with his. I hear him take a breath, not releasing it until my palms cup each side of his face, the faint stubble tickling my palms. He shuts his eyes one second before my lips touch his. It’s not even a kiss, barely a caress but his lips tremble against mine. My hands increase the pressure on him and, with our next breaths, I slide my tongue inside his mouth. He lets out a lustful groan and the sound vibrates through me, along my spine, between my legs and down my thighs.
I ravish his mouth. He ravishes mine, and I taste the metallic tang of his blood. I think I’m still in control until his hands grab my butt and pull me against him, our hips pinned to each other, him all hard where I’m already a melted softness. He lifts me and winds my legs to writhe around his waist. He swivels and next places me on the edge of the desk. His mouth leaves mine. It feels like a desertion but he’s already tracing a path of heat along my jawline, my neck, settling on the parcel of skin between my breasts. His thumbs tease my nipples through the material of my shirt. They harden. I stretch backwards, taking support on my hands, and offer my body for him to worship.
His fingers work their agile way down the buttons of my shirt, parting it to uncover my bra. He pulls down the lace of the bra to free a nipple, then flicks his tongue over it. He licks it, gives tiny bites, and applies the same care to my other nipple. The pleasure he gives me is now searing up and down my body.
He abandons my breasts and kisses his way down to my belly button. His tongue tickles me there and I start wriggling. His hands run down to my hips and he grabs them to stop me from moving any more. I moan in anticipation of what will come next but nothing comes.
The pleasure that has been buzzing inside me plateaus. I’m breathing hard and so is he. Gently his hands run along my back and he pulls my upper-body back up. I feel dizzy, blood having shot to the southern parts of my body. I’m not done yet and the fact that our mouths are now inches apart is enough to spin my desire for him into thousands of mad directions.
I force myself to swallow. “Why did you stop?”
I see him swallowing too and I can’t help but touch his Adam’s apple. He lays his forehead against mine. His voice is as coarse and shaky as mine when he answers, “This isn’t right.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t want it like this. On a desk... Having sex on a desk.”
“We can do it on the floor. Would that make it more right for you?” My words are so sharp that they seem to cut through him.
He shakes his head and his eyes drill through me. He’s searching for something inside me. “I want so much more. But I prefer nothing at all… nothing at all, rather than this.”
Again my palms cup his face but the touch is no longer gentle. I want control. I want power over him, all of him. “This isn’t for you to decide. You screwed up so badly now you owe it to me.” Zach tries to escape my grip. I don’t let him. “I want you to fuck me. Now and on that desk of yours. I want you to remember how good it is to be inside me each time you enter this room to work. I want you to remember me. I want you to remember what you lost and I want it to hurt.”
“I’ve never forgotten you. I’ll always remember you and I’ll always hurt. I don’t need that to—”
“It’s not about what you need. It’s what I need. And, right now, I need you to fuck me.”
I’ve never talked like that, never made demands like that. I lay my hand on his crotch and the budge there triggers a victorious smile to break across my face. Something wild flickers across his eyes. Something so feral, so uncivilized it almost makes me recoil.
Too late.
Zach buries his hands in my hair and our mouths crash against each other. Our tongues engage in an aggressive fencing match. His touch overwhelms my senses. His emerald-colored eyes are all I can see. The silk of his hair is all I can touch. His musky skin all I can smell. His minty breath mixed with the iron tang of his blood, all I can taste.
And all I can hear is my name he repeats in a raspy mantra while he tugs at my jeans, pulling them down my legs and throwing them on the floor. My panties follow next and I find myself fully exposed. My breasts are tucked out of the cups of my bra, my shirt wide open, my legs apart and the most intimate part of me on full display. He grabs his wallet from the back pocket of his jeans and extracts a condom. I should busy myself unbuttoning and unzipping his trousers, but I don’t. After my outward demand, I’ve turned into passive mode. There is a rush, a despair in Zach’s moves that I have never seen in him before, and that keeps me enthralled.
I stare down at his fingers unwrapping the foil and dressing his length with the condom. I have to keep myself from gasping. What I have always found trivial, has turned into something utterly erotic. My own fingers are antsy. I’m now dying to run them along him. Along his cock. The word echoes across my mind for the first time. Never have I let myself name it.
“Wrap your arms around my neck,” he orders.
I do as he asks. He slides his hands underneath my butt and lifts me. He enters me in one hard thrust. He sinks deep inside, hitting a spot tucked somewhere in my body I have no idea existed. It hurts and I whimper. His hand comes up to my chin tipping it upwards so that our gazes meet. I read the silent question in his and I simply nod. Yes, he must continue. He has to.
And he does. First slowly, he explores me, burying himself inside me, retracting his… cock so that only the tip of it fills me. He pushes and withdraws, pushes and withdraws, and takes me on a sensual climb. He has made me come before but this is different. We don’t kiss. We don’t talk, or whisper, or caress. He captures my gaze and keeps it jailed in his. His face is void of all expressions except for his eyes that betray each wave of pleasure, each wave of pain.
Because there is pain, a delicious, ravenous pain that radiates from that spot he has found throughout my tummy and runs along the curve of my breasts, kick-starts my heartbeat, and explodes in my head to rush down again, sizzling over the lengths of my legs and making me point my toes and wrap myself even more tightly around his waist.
I am so close to giving in and letting myself fall off the cliff when he switches rhythm, heightening the speed of his moves inside me. His push turns forceful and there’s no pain anymore. There is no word, either, to define the leap I make inside myself. My lips are now slightly apart, a humming sound I can’t control emanating from them. My forehead falls against his. I let myself go.
I come.
Loudly.
Fiercely.
Irrevocably.
And I know he is flying with me.
I crash, crumble, and he has to keep me from collapsing, his hands on the arch of my back providing support. I pant, and my head that now rests against his chest, is filled with the hurried beat of his heart.
There will never be any beating this. Bitterness subsides to the high and I fight the tears welling up behind my closed eyelids and the pathetic sob making its way up my throat. This has to be the end.
There is one last remnant of pride I can salvage, so I pick myself up and tear myself from him. It’s a physical challenge because my limbs are like jelly. I lay my hands flat on his chest and push him away. My legs are hanging over the edge of the desk and when I land on them I have to make every effort to keep them from crumbling beneath me. From the corner of my eye, I see Zach shake himself and run his fingers though his tousled hair. I fix my eyes on the door handle to find my balance again. I hear him shuffling, probably taking care of the condom an
d getting dressed again.
Then he kneels at my feet and, delicately, slides my panties up my legs. Next it’s my jeans. I ignore the tickling of his knuckles on my lower-stomach when he zips and buttons them up. One button after the other, he takes care of my shirt and, without me lifting a finger, I’m fully dressed again. Gently—reverently—he tidies the curls of my hair. His index finger lingers as he corrects one last curl.
His eyes pass over every part of my body except my face. My fingers circle his wrist. He gets the silent message and unties his own finger from the wisp of my hair. I side-step him and walk away, hoping I will reach the door without turning back. With a stiff gesture, I grab the handle that has anchored me a few moments ago. I stop… I stop because I expect him to say something, anything. He doesn’t and I know it’s better—easier—that way. I rush outside the office, into the crowded hall. I recognize the bouncer at the entrance: He’s the one who barred my escape the last time I was here. He doesn’t stop me this time.
I storm out of Le Duke. I cross the street blindly, and reaching the opposite sidewalk feels as though I’ve been granted asylum. My hands are clasped over my chest and I try to get back to my yoga-breathing. The September night has an autumn chill in it and I shiver.
A hand on my shoulder startles me. “Eleanor?”
I look up to find Pierre with a crease between his eyebrows. “Ca va?” Are you okay?
“Pas vraiment.” Not really.
My candor deepens the crease and makes him switch to English. “Do you want to sit down? There’s a square at the corner of the street. I’m sure I’ve seen a bench there.”
One way or the other, I have to get my butt as far away from Le Duke as possible.
“Yes, pl—”
“Lenor.”
I turn to face him, all thoughts of squares and benches kicked aside. He shouldn’t have come after me. Pierre’s head ping-pongs between Zach and me, but he doesn’t intervene.
“You can’t leave like that. Not after what happened… we need to talk about this.”
“We’ve talked quite enough.”
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