The End

by Charlotte E Hart

  “I don’t want you, Alana. We need you. All three of us.” She clasps her legs tighter, the sneer developing again as she tries to deny the truth again. “But I can’t contain them when I’m with you. I’m terrified of that.” She stares still, a slight narrowing of her eyes as her chin raises. “And you should be too.”

  Chapter 22

  Alana

  T he room is warm, the dull throb of music outside coming between our continued gaze, but other than that there’s nothing but brown eyes that look glazed as they stare back.

  Terrified? I’m not terrified, not of him. I’ve seen the worst that can happen, stood over her grave. That’s not us. It never will be.

  “I need your life, little dove. All of it, without questions or deliberation.”

  The enormity of that statement makes me swallow and struggle to hold his eyes, but I do. There’s no backing down. That’s not what those eyes need from me. They need tenacity and strength as they bore back, no sense of wrong or care for my argument should I try. It’s that way or no way at all. I don’t know why I know that, but I do. That’s his offer. Full control of me or nothing at all.

  “What does that mean exactly?” The question doesn’t come out shakily anymore, I’m through that now. Now I’m intrigued and interested, perhaps buoyed up by the sense that he needs me. Need is a feeling, a heartbeat, something you can’t be without. It’s so much more than wanting anything. But I still want to know why. I need to. I want to understand viscerally, to have that power within us so I can feel my way through whatever this will be, trust him further than I already have. And he just smiles again as I ponder his face, some inclination of amusement at my confusion lingering around lips that should be kissing mine.

  “You know what it means. You’ve been learning all about what it means since the floor of the church. You know exactly what it means.”

  I keep staring, trying to let all the knowledge I have bind together, searching for ways to make this a possibility. It’s not just a relationship anymore, is it? Not just him and me together as and when we choose, enjoying sensation and yet living our lives at the same time. This is near slavery in reality. To be kept and used, moulded.

  “That’s a lot to ask for.”

  “I told you, I’m an asshole. A selfish one, at that.”

  “And there isn’t anything you’ve got to offer a girl that’s a little more charming?” He raises a brow and stands, causing me to follow his frame as he steps forward. “Something to make this seem nicer somehow? Because I love you, Blaine, I do, but you’re asking for my life here.”

  “No, I’m asking you to trust me with it. All of it. It’s the only way I can keep control of me.”

  I pull the blanket closer as he paces the ground, my eyes still following him to stay ready for whatever he’s going to do next. We’re both mad to be discussing this, really. Mad as hatters and not caring for the magnitude of killing fingers and lacking care.

  “I don’t even really know what it is that you want, Blaine. Total subservience? A life beneath you? Whatever you want whenever you want it?” He pockets those hands of his, a smile broadening as my questions pour out of me.

  The thought of those attributes is more appealing than my brain will allow comprehension of. Nothing to worry about, nothing to discuss or argue over. No concerns other than his directions and wants. Just pure, simple immersion into this, no thought of anything but that and my writing.

  “All of the above. It’s the only way you can help me contain them,” he says, calmly.

  I turn away from him, gripping my knees to my chest and wondering what lunatic allows this as a part of their existence, let alone asks for it from men like Blaine. Contain them? He means the three voices he talks of, doesn’t he? The insanity.

  It makes me wonder which one of him stood out there and watched me be poked and prodded, asked me to do it for them. Irrespective of whichever one of him it was, I still feel alive here with him. Loved, adored even. I felt it out there, and I feel it now as he gazes at me, asking for something so few would be able to give.

  “The staining’s wearing off,” he says, breaking me of my mused thoughts. I turn to look at him as he moves onto the other end of my sofa and sits. “How’s the story going?”

  What the hell’s that got to do with anything?

  I glance back at my fingers, noting the dulled ink that lingers there and thinking back to my last typing session on the typewriter. I don’t know how much I wrote that day, perhaps a few thousand. It changed the way I wrote on my laptop, though. I don’t care any longer for word-count, nor do I care if it meets credible criteria. I just write, letting the words flow until they’re finished without care to the chapter’s length. My heroine’s in love, regardless of her situation. The hero’s proving himself to a degree. Villain and plot twists missing because this story isn’t how a publisher wants it. It doesn’t conform, nor does it follow protocol. This is my story. His story. Our words.

  “It’s almost finished,” I eventually reply, still turning my fingers over. “Not long until the end.” He chuckles and reaches his hand forward slowly, the sight of it making me yearn for it to land on my skin and remind me why I’m here again. And it does, without my moving to reach him. He’s just there, his fingers mingling with mine and filling me with the same emotions they always do. The end. What a couple of words to write for this journey. I watch his larger hand link with mine, watch it sit there with such ease and calm. No tremble in it, no sense of trepidation or fear. He’s so definite in himself, unlike me, still, regardless of his concern. “How should I finish it?”

  “That’s not my decision to make, it’s yours, but my way is the only way forward for us. You know you have to ask me for it.” The thought should make me frown. It would certainly make other women frown, but not me, it appears.

  “Why did Priest pull me away from you?” He stares, one finger running over mine to keep us coupled again. “What was that? I felt alone without you.” I look away, struggling to get the words out under his gaze. “You make me secure here, Blaine. Not Priest or any of the others,” I whisper, remembering him always feeling so close to me. “Mad or not, when you’re with me, I feel safe.” There’s a clipped sigh that leaves him. It hangs in the air around us, making the heart he’s damn near holding almost stop. “I can’t do it if you leave me alone, Blaine. I can’t. I won’t.”

  “Alana, there are rules and obligations here,” he says. I quirk my head, hoping for something to make sense, as I stare into his eyes. “They’re ones I don’t want, but they’re ones we do need. I definitely do. They were reminding me of that out there. Showing me something that not all of me wants to acknowledge.” Still I stare, hoping for more clarification, until he sweeps me into him and kisses my forehead, soft lips warming everything I’ve been missing in here before he arrived. “I don’t have enough control of you, Alana, not enough control to keep the voices at bay. That’s why I’m asking for everything. I’d rather you alive and breathing if I can achieve it. Safe.” I nod into his lips, barely managing to stay as shocked as I should be by the last of that statement. “Not dead.”

  I blow out a breath at the word, remembering the cold f that slab he put me on. It’s the insanity, isn’t it? The three of him creeping into us and changing our dynamic, or making it the way it should be. I don’t know, but I also don’t know if I can give that life. I might want him, might want and need a life that I’m desperate for in some ways, but whatever happened out there with those people just showed me it’s far from any reality I know of.

  “Blaine, it isn’t as simple as that. None of this is. This isn’t a life I know.” I look at the door, wondering about what that sort of life means and trying to find a rationale in it for us as he keeps me firm against him. There isn’t any that I can see. Just me and him in his house is one thing, this other life he needs? Well, it’s quite another, no matter how tempting it might be. “I’ve got deadlines, things to achieve.” Although, at this point, and b
ecause of the hold he’s still increasing around me, I can’t remember any of them. “My life, you know? Publishers, meetings. I can’t just beck and call to you whenever you feel like it. All this is-” stimulating, fulfilling, overwhelming, and so beautiful I could cry? “Wonderful, but it’s not life, is it? I can’t just do this all the time and become your-” What? “Thing.”

  He backs away and smirks, chuckling at my description of myself as he settles himself and then yanks me back to sit astride him.

  “Yes you can. You leave the world to me and say thank you, like a good little brat should. You’ll make a damn good thing for me.”

  I gaze in reply, smiling slightly at the thought. I wish I could leave it all to him. Wish it were as simple as the way he makes it seem, but there will always be things that need doing, meetings that need attending. There will always be noise, won’t there? There will always be a time when I have to go back, start answering it all again. And the notifications will keep coming, no matter how he shelters me from them for a while.

  I sigh as he sits there, letting the strength of his eyes surround me and make me feel warm again. It’s over, isn’t it? My dream, his beach, the thought of wandering them eternally and popping in and out of the real world when I need to? It’s done. I can’t give him everything the way he needs it.

  It just won’t work.

  “We should stop this,” I mutter, quietly. We should. My logical brain knows that, no matter how my mind screams for the kind of release he promises. He frowns instantly, fingers tightening on my thigh in protest, but it can’t be a getaway forever. I can’t be hidden away in corners for him to play with, an order of subservience in place. It’s just been a holiday into the unknown. A beautiful one, and one that I’ll never forget, but it’s not a life I can endure forever, certainly not with the kind of sentiment he’s talking of. I’m independent. My life has had to be. “You were right at the beginning. Our lives just don’t work that way. I have obligations, commitments and …” He pushes his cock into me, pressing my hips down onto him so my core slicks against his trousers. Fuck. All coherent thought goes out the bloody window, lost from just a touch and more of that commanding force. It’s enough to make me close my eyes and forget any reasons why I shouldn’t be here.

  “You have obligations to me.” He muses the words, his fingers wandering around my naked back, testing all the muscles he knows so well. “Remember them.” I do. I remember them with acute clarity. He doesn’t need to touch me for that. He just needs to fucking exist and I can feel every hold he has over me. “Let me love you, Alana, don’t push this away.” The statement forces my eyes open, my hands hovering on his shoulders as I feel his lips graze my throat. Such honesty from him, such emotion, and it’s so quiet. “I need you now.” The words are as hushed as the first ones, perhaps barely spoken for fear they might not be received well. I just watch the way his head keeps moving, his lips meandering the same spots, his eyes tucked away beneath my chin as he traces them across my skin. “I love you.”

  I feel the cracking of my heart long before the tear that trickles along my cheek. It takes my breath away, making me smile and imagine a life of words like that from him. They fill the void that’s been hovering around us, giving true depth to our meaning of love. My arms draw him closer, enjoying the way he curls into me and holds himself together with me, rather than for me. This moment is it, the thing I’ve searched for from him. And we’re here like a pin, balancing on a moment in the hope that I’ll give him everything he needs without care to my future. “Walk my beach with me, little dove. Stop thinking about why you shouldn’t. Trust me to make this work for us.”

  “But you want everything.” His head comes up to gaze at me, his thumb wiping the tear away that began to fall, then swiping it into his mouth as he nods.

  “I do, without questioning.”

  I struggle away from his hold, feet tripping over themselves until I scramble from his lap and stand to face him. It’s just not fucking possible, is it? No matter how much I want it to be. What’s he going to do, walk me to meetings and tell me how to react? They’re my books. It’s my life. My publisher and my contracts. I can’t be a slave to someone else’s wants and desires. It’s not real life.

  “I have a life, Blaine. I have responsibilities.”

  “That you hate.”

  “I don’t hate it, I-” he arches that brow of his and leans back onto the seat, waiting for whatever words I can’t get out. “Struggle with it.”

  “You fucking hate it. What you want is to write and dream. It’s exactly what you should be doing. So you write, Alana, and I’ll manage whoever Fuckwit the 3rd is. All you have to do is agree.” My mouth gapes as I stare back, wondering how the hell he thinks he’s going to do that.

  Although, I suppose he has done a damn good job of it while I’ve been on my sabbatical. Still, he can’t do it constantly, can he? And deal with Barringer? Jesus, that will just end up with fights and years of litigation, both of them butting heads and using powers they think they have over my mind and body. No, it’s ridiculous. Love is one thing. This world is another. The two can’t be mingled together in some contract of sorts, him managing the entirety of my life as it does.

  “Your life is here now, little dove. With me.” He stands suddenly, the speed making me swing round to see him waving his hand around the space, anger suddenly etching his brow. “Your emotions and thoughts about yourself should be here, in our world.”

  My mouth moves around snarls and snaps wanting to come from it, irritation lacing every fucking breath, regardless of whether he’s right or not. My phone and life outside of this are very real. The endless damn deadlines are real, irrespective of whether I want them to be or not. Nothing will make them go away. This is all just a dream, fantasy even, no matter how the love I feel still continues to thunder in my chest.

  We just stare at each other. Him impassive but near explosive, me trying as hard as I can to contain the sense of sadness that wants to pour out, until he walks passed me and catches me off guard, grabbing my wrist and yanking me towards the door.

  “Your needs are here, Alana Williams,” he snarls, unlocking the door and shoving me out into the roaring sound of the club again. “This is why you are lost. You crave the quiet this gives you. It’s what you are.” I freeze at his words, not knowing which way to look because of them. “It’s the same quiet I crave. We are the same breed, searching for our counterparts.” I snap my eyes to him, infuriated with his superiority in the midst of my dishevelment. “You came to me asking for my help, little dove. Here it is. This is your world now. Stop fighting and just yield to it. Trust me with everything.”

  I flinch around, backing myself to the wall and snatch glances at everything going on in the vicinity. Cries and howls, moans, a low drift of smoke glazing the ground as I stare into the gloom and try to make out shapes and sounds. And the smell, it’s electrifying, no matter how repugnant it might seem to my nostrils. It’s nothing like that first club I met him in. Here is decadence and true debauchery, the display of cunts and cock on show more seductive than it ever seemed at first.

  Sweat drips from skin, men and women wander casually dragging their significant others around, and the moans and groans seem guttural, as if bellowed through need rather than the high pitch tones and wails of before.

  “This is the real world of sadists and their toys, Alana. No wretched false dominants brawling for a chance to fuck the innocent. This is how honour comes into the fold. Out here is where you are worshipped for giving yourself over to pain. You are coveted for your beauty in our eyes, in mine.” My hands cover me as I back along the wall further, trying to get away from the visions, perhaps avoiding the very thing he’s been guiding me towards all this time. That’s what it’s all been, hasn’t it? First the pain. Then the mind probing. Then the kneeling and begging, somehow making me want more of it with every next encounter. The trust, the conversations, the little snippets into his mind. It’s all been a road t
o here, one I followed willingly, barely understanding its meaning until now. “You won, little dove.”

  “Won what?”

  “Your war against my heart. For what it’s worth, it’s yours. Take it. Use it as you see fit.” His heart. I shake my head from gazing at him and look around the room again, carefully putting one foot in front of the other towards the place I was hanging in earlier. I can’t give it all. It’ll never work like that. He can’t protect me from everything. He just can’t. It’s not possible. “We can’t run from it anymore, Alana. You want fucking proof? Here, let me show you what you’re worth to me.”

  He hauls me up and starts walking off through the throng of people. I snatch and grab at him, trying to push him away maybe, I don’t fucking know. It’s all a mess inside my mind again, coherent thought lost in the middle of this noise and smell. It’s overwhelming me, making me feel scared or panicked. It’s not like at his house. It’s always so silent there, noiseless. And I can’t even see his eyes as we go to help me, his pace speeding with every footfall. It’s just a blur of bodies in the darkened murk, some still hollering and yelling, pained and agonised groans coming from corners I can’t see.

  “You have to put me down,” leaves my lips, as I watch a woman stripped and pushed to the floor. I flinch as she screams and writhes on the floor, her body already being pulled at by the others around her. “Blaine, stop, I can’t do this for you.”

  It’s a futile plea, one I know won’t get me anywhere but further into whatever he’s thinking of. I don’t even know why I’m protesting, really. I followed him here, bowed and willed us further into this, pushed him, even after he’d shown me her grave. And I love him so much, I do, regardless of knowing I need to leave. It just won’t work between us his way.