by Evelyn Vox
“It was a birthday present,” I told Brian. “I—I forgot to mention it.”
More like I knew this was the reaction I’d get.
“What a fucking joke,” Brian said. “This. This,” he gestured with his arms, “is why it needs to end.”
“I’ll stop getting her gifts,” Derek said.
“It’s not about the gifts. It’s about the intimacy. It’s about her telling you about our relationship.”
“I don’t—”
“She doesn’t—”
Derek and I both protested at the same time, but Brian cut us off.
“You told him why we were arguing. You let him stay here and watch movies with you. I’m not comfortable with this anymore. It ends. Now.”
Oh god.
The tears began to fall again.
This was it, our sinking ship.
Derek’s face was a picture of fury. He turned to me, gray eyes pleading, frantic. I knew what he was asking. I knew what he was saying without needing to say it. The only way I could still be with him. He reached a hand out and grabbed mine.
“Alexandra,” he begged, “please.”
Brian scoffed. Derek ignored him and so did I. He wanted me to leave with him. To shut the door on Brian and my marriage, and start over with him. My lip wobbled as my eyes flashed between the two of them. Derek was strong and sure, but Brian was my husband. We had a life together. We were supposed to work through hardship.
I took my hand back and clutched it to my heart.
“He’s my husband, Derek,” I said, my voice hardly more than a whisper, “I—I can’t.”
“Alexandra,” his voice was strained, “Please, don’t do this.”
“You heard her,” Brian said, standing and pointing to the door. “It’s time for you to leave.”
I gasped, the pain so wretched I couldn’t breathe.
“Shut the fuck up,” Derek hissed at Brian.
He got on his knees and clasped his hands before him. Here he was, on his knees, and begging me not to leave him. My strong, proud Master reduced to groveling at my feet. I could hardly see him through the stream of my tears.
“D-derek,” I bawled. “I’m so sorry.”
He shuffled over on his knees and placed his head in my lap.
“Alexandra,” his voice was a pathetic moan, like he was holding back his own sobs.
I stroked his hair, so dark and beautiful and soft between my fingers. This was it. This was good-bye. My body shook as I lifted his head.
“Thank you,” I said, looking into those anguished gray eyes, normally so bright, now dulled by their sorrow. “For everything.”
We always knew we were on borrowed time. I just didn’t think it would be over so soon. With shaking hands, he pulled my lips to his and kissed them with closed eyes, like he was savoring this moment. Searing it into his memory for all time. I leaned my forehead to rest against his.
I inhaled his masculine scent. I felt his every touch, let it burn itself into my skin, where I wanted it to brand me forever. My heart was heavy, the grief was too much. Footsteps came towards us and Derek was suddenly yanked from me.
“Enough,” Brain hissed. “Get out.”
Derek’s eyes burned. That was the only warning before he turned and spun upwards to deck Brian with a vicious undercut to the chin. Brian soared back, collapsing on the sofa behind him. Blood trickled out of his mouth as Derek towered over him, breathing heavily.
“You have no idea how long I’ve wanted to do that.”
Brian sat in silence, either too stunned or too scared to do anything else. Derek turned and looked me straight in the eye, his own burning me to the core.
“This isn’t over, Alexandra.”
That dominance, oh god. Even now, through all this drama, all this insanity, he managed to strike a chord deep inside me—my mind, body, my very soul.
“Even if you don’t come back to me,” he said, contradicting himself, “you deserve better than that piece of shit.”
Every part of my body screamed at me to get up and chase after him. But I sat there, frozen, and watched Derek Drake walk out of my apartment and out of my life.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
DEREK
I wasn’t sure how I got home.
It was a haze. My body moved on its own. I barely remembered the drive as I unlocked my front door. All I knew was I got in my car and drove. I drove and I drove until my driveway rose up to meet me. Sounds were distorted and muffled. The only thing I could hear was the truth that thundered in my heart: it wasn’t over between us.
No fucking way it was over.
I didn’t know how. I didn’t know when. But as sure as I knew there was breath in my lungs and ground under my feet, I knew that Alexandra belonged to me and I belonged to her. She’d come around. I knew it.
It was only a matter of time.
Brian was wrong for her. He was fucking wrong for her. I glanced at my bruised knuckles and the beast swelled with satisfaction at the memory.
God. It felt so fucking good to punch him at last.
He seemed to have gotten his head back on straight. I’d never have left her with him if I thought he was going to hurt her again.
No. When I decked him, I made sure he knew. He wasn’t stupid and he saw the threat in my eyes. Just because I was gone, didn’t meant Alexandra was alone or defenseless.
So long as I breathed, if he laid a hand on her, I’d be there to pay it back ten-fold.
“Motherfucker!”
I screamed into my empty house. The rage and agony of her absence swooped in to my mind with all the clarity I’d been lacking moments ago. I cursed again, fighting the bitter sting of tears. Tears.
I screamed some more and punched the wall repeatedly. I embraced the pain as my knuckles split and bled on the now cracked drywall. It was better than the helpless feeling that threatened to split my chest. I closed my eyes and saw her face. Saw the way she shook, the way she hated to say no.
It was always the same game with Alexandra.
She was always so afraid to claim what she wanted.
I was drawn to her vulnerability, her submissive nature, from the start. How long would it take her to realize? To realize that she didn’t need him. That she didn’t even need me. She was incredible and talented and strong on her own.
How long before she stood up for herself and left that asshole?
How long could I stand to be away from her?
Even now, my fingers itched to call her. To make sure she was okay. Fuck, I knew she wasn’t okay. Fuck, I wasn’t okay. I ambled out of my house, leaving the backdoor open, grateful I hadn’t picked Aries up yet. I walked until I hit the beach. The late October air was cold. It stung my eyes. The gray-blue waves broke along the shore.
Violent. Raging. Destructive.
The beach was empty. The sand found its way into my shoes as I walked to the water’s edge. I sank to my knees. The salt water rushed up, soaked through my jeans and made my skin prickle. But I barely felt the cold.
I was empty.
Broken.
Alexandra.
I howled, raging into the desolate, lonely ocean before me.
LEXIE
The bed was warm. Comfortable. I stared at the ceiling and I felt nothing. I didn’t do much else these days. I knew if I waited long enough, the exhaustion and numbness would pull me back under. The blackness would take me and I wouldn’t have to remember.
Wouldn’t have to remember why I felt this void in my chest.
Why I cried every day.
When I slept, I didn’t have think about Brian dabbing a cloth at his bleeding mouth and telling me there was no way I was going to school. That he was never going to change his mind.
I tried not to think about the couple’s therapist he had booked for us. About the appointment that I was missing right now. I’d tried to get up and get dressed for it, but it was just too hard. The emptiness had yawned open before me. It was a wide, terrifying chasm that I couldn’
t face.
I hadn’t even made it to the closet before I turned back to my bed. Welcoming. Warm. Comfortable. He’d be furious with me. I knew it. But I tried not to think about that, either. Or about the gray eyes that haunted my dreams. The ones with the wicked gleam.
The devil no longer in my bed, but still in my heart.
Derek.
My eyes filled with tears.
No. It was too much. The loss was more than I could tolerate. It was easier to just…stop. So that’s what I did. I closed my eyes and waited.
Waited for that welcome darkness.
The darkness he’d taught me how to embrace.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
DEREK
The days bled into one another.
I was fairly certain my number had been blocked from her phone. It was the only explanation for the calls that went right to voicemail and the texts that were perpetually unanswered.
I refused to believe she wouldn’t have said anything. It wasn’t like her. I took a sip of my drink, the tequila going down harsh and nasty. Who the fuck was I kidding? Ignoring my calls was right up her alley.
“Yo, man, you still with me?”
Suddenly, the bar rushed back into focus. The dim lighting, the shitty music, and Jon, sitting next to me. He wore the same concerned expression he’d had every time he saw me the last few weeks. At first, he’d all but said I told you so. But now he fussed over me like a mother hen as I drank myself into nothingness every night.
“What did you say?” I asked, downing the second tequila shot that waited for me.
I’d refused the salt and the lime. When the bartender asked why, I told him I wasn’t a fucking eighteen year-old coed, and that I just wanted to drink.
“I said that lady over there’s been staring at you, bro.” He jerked his head to the right, the movement obvious and catching the attention of the woman in question.
My eyes were slow and heavy as I dragged them in her direction. Tall, bleach blonde, big tits— probably fake. She smiled at me through heavily glossed and injected lips.
“So?” I asked Jon, ignoring her and looking back at him.
“So,” he said, giving me a nudge with his elbow, “it’s almost been a month. Don’t you think it’s time to get on the rebound? Forget about the rich bitch?”
I slammed my shot glass on the bar. The sound drew looks from startled patrons.
“Call her a bitch one more time, Jon,” I seethed, “and see what happens.”
I was the only one allowed to call her that. And only under very specific circumstances. Ideally, when she was chained and helpless in my basement. For a moment, I was back in time, remembering how I’d punished her with the magic wand for disobeying me. Jon’s voice jolted me out of it again and I frowned.
Fucking hell, I didn’t like the present.
The past was much better.
“I’m trying to help you out, man. You need to get over her. I’m sorry it’s done, but it’s done, Derek.”
“Mind your own business.” I nodded at the bartender to fill my glass again. He obliged, though his look suggested it was against his better judgement.
He was probably right. It was unwise of him to ignore that instinct to refuse me. I was stewing for a fight. I’d been kicked out of more bars in the last few weeks than I had in my entire life. And I’d been kicked out of my fair share of bars already. I wondered absently if I should look up the world record for most number of bar-fights started.
I’d bet I was in the running for it.
I was sporting a mean black eye as it was. From the asshole two nights ago who looked at me funny after I threw my phone at the wall. I’d called Alexandra, only to get her voicemail after the first ring, like always.
I may have been half way through a bottle of vodka at that point. But either way, the bastard didn’t just get to look at me like that and get away with it.
I’d broken my phone beyond repair. But, shit, maybe it was for the best. Jon was right. I had to start trying, at least, to pick up the shattered pieces of me that she left in her wake.
I just didn’t know how to stop thinking about her.
How was she doing? Did she end up going to school? Did Brian clean up his act and start treating her better?
I just wanted her to be happy.
I couldn’t shake the feeling that it wasn’t over. That there was still so much left for us to do and explore, together.
“You gotta accept it, man,” Jon said, his hand a comforting weight on my back. “It’s over. It’s done. Time to move on.”
Maybe he was right. Maybe I was holding onto false hope. Maybe I was just fucking fooling myself that we still had more left ahead of us.
“Shit,” I grumbled. “If that’s the case, I’m going to need about six more of these shots.”
“Come on, baby.”
Hands moved over my chest and tugged at my belt. Bleary consciousness rattled me. Where was I? My head swam with liquor. Those hands touched me like they knew me, but something was…wrong about them.
“Alexsssandra?” My speech slurred and I swayed on my feet as I tried to walk.
“Whoa, there, big boy,” that voice said. Those hands pushed me back against a brick wall, and I realized I was outside. Someone was pressing me against the back of the bar. Dumpsters overflowed across the alley. Sticky lips pressed against mine. They tasted like bubblegum.
“Alexandra,” I groaned her name again.
Those lips pulled away and a blonde head blurred in and out of my vision. A girlish chuckle, then my hands were pressed against breasts. Big, squishy, and definitely fake. I blinked as the woman’s face came into focus.
“After you get your fill of these,” she said, “you won’t forget my name’s Cassidee.”
“No.” I tried to pull my hands away from her, but she kept them there.
“No?” she laughed. “Come on, big boy, I know you want some of this.”
“Alexandra!” I growled her name, or tried to. It was more of a bellow. Like a sad, pathetic dog wailing for an owner that would never come home.
“Ca-ssi-dee,” she hissed, slowing down each syllable. “I don’t know who that bitch, Alexandra, is.”
Wrong. This was all wrong! I brushed this woman off of me like she was nothing more than a piece of lint. She stumbled over her heels before catching herself on the wall.
“What the fuck?”
I turned and stared at her, still swaying, but in control at last.
“Go find someone else to rub up against, cooze.”
I almost laughed at the outrage on her face. I’d never been good with women. I attracted a certain sort. They were either damaged and desperate or submissive and willing. This woman was the former. But it didn’t matter.
Only one woman would do.
I wasn’t sure how I wound up out here with this one. I had a fleeting memory of Jon pushing her my way, of her taking my hand and tugging me outside, but that was it. Clearly, Jon didn’t realize that Alexandra had spoiled all other women for me. None of them could ever compare to her. None of them would do.
I staggered away, too lost contemplating how royally fucked I was to really listen to her cursing me out. I rounded the corner and the neon lights of the bar’s entrance filled my vision.
A drink. That sounded grrrreat right now. I stumbled through the door, right into some wimpy douchebag who looked far too much like Brian Hale for my liking. My lip curled.
“It’s not your day, asshole,” I mumbled to his shocked face before I punched him.
“Drake!”
For the second time that night, a strange voice brought me to. Except this one was far less sweet. And I was far too sober. I groaned. The pounding in my head was a living, fiery thing. I burped.
“Don’t you fucking spew in here,” the same gruff voice said. “Your bail’s been posted. Wait five minutes and puke your guts out all you want outside. But you do it in my cell and I’m keeping you here another twelve hours.”
I looked up at the portly cop. His mustache seemed to billow as he spoke, and I realized with a start I wasn’t as sober as I’d thought. I blinked, hands pawing at my eyes. What happened last night? I must have looked disoriented because the cop laughed.
“What? Having some trouble remembering what you’re in for?”
I dragged my fingers down my face and looked at the cop, the skin around my eyes pulled taut.
“You got into one hell of a fight. Even resisted arrest, you belligerent ass.”
It was like the words brought it all back. Flashes of my fists flying, feet going, sirens, shouts. Then the pain of my split lip, the cut over my eyebrow, and the bruise on my cheek, flared to life.
“Shit.”
“Yeah, if I had it my way you’d be here all weekend.”
I had a feeling I knew why I wasn’t.
“You’re lucky your name’s Drake,” the cop said, unlocking the cell and opening it wide. “Now get your ass out of here. Next time I won’t give a shit who your sister is.”
I groaned and contemplated the wisdom of asking to stay. I’d rather spend the weekend in lock-up than deal with my sister right now.
“Is she out there?”
“No, some man named Jon Davies is waiting for you. He called her and she sent the money to post your bail.”
I stood on shaking legs. My stomach churned. Christ. This was why I didn’t drink tequila. I walked out of there, scribbled my signature on some paperwork, grabbed a plastic bag full of my shit, and met Jon in the lobby.
The second we stepped out of the station, I puked into the bushes.
“Shit, boss,” Jon said, “this has to stop.”
My stomach clenched and twisted though nothing was left. As I stood up and wiped a hand across my mouth, I was inclined to agree with him.
It was time to get over Alexandra Hale.
Or try, at least.
Because I knew, deep down, there’d be no getting over her. I’d just have to learn how to live with it—the emptiness.
“Thanks, Jon,” I said, following him to his car. “Remind me to double your raise this year.”