“I’m worried about you,” she said fervently. “I’m coming over.”
“You don’t have to.”
“I’ll be there in twenty minutes,” she said and hung up.
I fell immediately back into my couch. When she arrived, she let herself in, looking concerned as she peeled her trench coat away. She ran a hand over my hair with sadness in her eyes. She wiped the spoiled milk from the floor and the walls. She turned off the television and helped me into my pajamas. I wanted to stay on the couch, but she forced me into the bed I’d come to fear. She held me as I cried myself to sleep, shaking for David like an addict.
* * *
It’s only a shadow, but it’s as real as the bones in my body. If I stop moving—if I look behind me—it will consume me. But it’s already here, inside me, waiting. It’s been waiting—waiting to pounce, waiting for the end.
“It’s okay,” I hear. “You’re safe now. I’m here, and nothing can touch you.” I breathe a sigh of relief. Finally, I am safe in his arms. David strokes my hair and tells me it’s okay to cry. My chin quivers. My eyes water. It was just so sad. So profoundly sad. My grief was bottomless, but it’s over now.
I opened my eyes to the same blackness of my dream. Everything was still at that lifeless hour. The shadow from my dream was there with me, because it was part of me. Underneath my head, the pillow was a cloud; beside me, Gretchen was warm. But it felt like the end. And that night, a piece of me died.
24
The next evening, alone again, I stood in the doorway of the bedroom Bill and I shared. A framed wedding photo sat on my nightstand, his dirty socks lay just inches from the hamper. On our bookshelf was a coffee table book about the Chicago Bulls I’d given him for our first anniversary.
Thunder sounded, ripping me from my trance. I didn’t know when the sun had set or how long I’d been standing there. The day had been a haze of crying and vomiting and fits of broken sleep. After calling Beman to say I was sick, Gretchen had insisted on staying with me until she’d had to go a couple hours earlier.
Fog veiled the city. Gray clouds, weighty with rain, crept languorously across the sky, settling overhead like an old man in his favorite chair. My mood was as heavy as the atmosphere, and I let the gloom wrap itself around me like a cloak. Rain started abruptly and severely, a violent storm that finally alleviated the day’s thick air.
The faintest glow came through the window as dusk encroached, casting darkness everywhere it didn’t touch. The lights went out. I flipped the switch but only got an empty thud. I felt my way to the hallway closet, where we kept candles for the times when the electricity cut out. I lit each one in the bedroom along with the decorative ones that were already out. Little tea candles glowed, and the room filled with scents of cinnamon and vanilla.
I sat alone in the silence, on the edge of my plush white comforter, unsure of what to do with myself. Everything was eerily still, and all I heard was the increasing violence of the falling rain. Lightning lit up the room. As when I was a child, I counted—one one-thousand, two one-thousand, three one-thousand—until I heard thunder cackle somewhere in the distance. I thought of David and our last words to each other.
There came a slow but deliberate rap against the apartment door—knock, knock, knock. I passed the bedroom mirror, glancing at my reflection out of habit. I could only see the faint glow of my pale skin against Bill’s navy crewneck sweater. It hung from my shoulders down to my mid-thighs and over ratty jeans. My hand went instinctively to the hair knotted at the top of my head, and I tucked some renegade pieces behind my ear. I was thankful that it was likely only Gretchen, back to check on me.
I put my cheek to the door. “Who is it?”
“Open the door, Olivia.”
David.
I sucked in a breath. The wood burned against my cheek, and I suddenly felt hot in Bill’s sweater. As my heart rate increased, life seeped out of my muscles, leaving my limbs shaky.
I didn’t say anything, but fitted myself against the door, yearning for what was on the other side.
“Olivia.”
“What are you doing here?” I asked so softly that I doubted he’d even heard. “What are you thinking?”
“Do you want me to tell the whole hallway why I’m here?” he countered in an equally low voice. I unlatched the door and looked at him with hard eyes. He pushed his way in, slamming the door behind him. “The electricity’s out?”
I didn’t answer, just walked through the dank, dark apartment to the candlelit bedroom.
“What are you doing here?” I demanded. “You can’t come here. Ever.” I knew by the look on his face that he heard the wavering in my voice. Sweat trickled down my stomach, and my jeans stuck to my legs, stifling me.
He surprised me with his next words. “I didn’t want to come. I meant what I said in my office, and I’m furious that you walked out on me without giving me a real chance to explain myself. I deserved that chance.”
I widened my eyes at him. “You’re furious? How dare you?”
He held up his hand to cut me off. “Do not interrupt me.”
Did he have any clue how hard the past month had been for me? How I’d been ready to finally consider giving everything up for him that day in his office, only to find he’d been playing with my life from an ivory tower?
“Gretchen called me,” he said.
My jaw dropped. “She what?”
“She told me that Bill’s out of town and that I should come immediately.”
Stunned into silence, I finally noticed the dark scruff on his face. His wild black hair, damp from the rain. Chestnut eyes, angry but glowing in the candlelight. His impeccable posture remained, but he was a different man, his composure cracked.
“Why’d you come?” I pleaded, my throat thick. “You promised you wouldn’t chase me. You’re making this too hard. You can’t be here in my husband’s home.”
“And where is your husband? Where is he ever?” David shot back. He took one large step, grasped my chin between two fingers, and inspected my tear-streaked face. His tone softened. “How could he leave you like this?”
Though David’s eyes betrayed his exhaustion, there was determination in them. I turned my face away and put a hand to my welling chest, trying to depress it.
Once I’d collected myself, I braced myself for the conversation I thought would never happen. “You lied to me,” I said. “And you hurt me that night at the ball.”
“I know that I hurt you, and I’ve spent weeks regretting that night. But the idea of him touching you—holding you, dancing with you, when it should have been me . . . the hardest part was that you looked so goddamn happy. It ripped my heart out.”
I struggled not to get lost in his words, as I’d known I would once I gave him a chance to explain, and focus on the truth. “You made me feel like trash,” I said.
“I lost control,” he uttered, swallowing audibly. “I saw red, and I should’ve left the party immediately. I never meant to make you feel that way.” His stiff, cold bearing broke when he flinched. “For that, I’m sorry.”
“None of this matters, David. Just say what you have to say, and get out.”
He scrubbed his face a moment and sighed. “There’s no excuse for buying the house. But here’s the truth—everything. I don’t care anymore whether you’re ready to hear it. But you have to know that this is the truth, because I’m not going to repeat myself.”
I nodded for him to continue.
His jaw worked side to side. “When you told me that Bill had made an offer, I panicked. I’d never been as scared as I was in that moment. I could not—would not—let him buy that house. I instructed my realtor to make the owners an offer they couldn’t refuse.”
I closed my eyes and took a shaky breath. “Because you wanted to hurt us—”
“Because I wanted it to be me.”
I wanted that, too. The unbidden thought came with a wave of shame. And I understood that although David had done so
mething very wrong, I wasn’t angry with him but myself. I wanted that house, that life, with David, not Bill. And upon learning I could have it—I’d become scared to death and run away.
I blinked my eyes open. David had never been one to hold back, but I recognized by the agony in his eyes and the bluntness of his words that he was putting it all out there now.
“Because I wanted to be the one buying you your dream home and fixing it up for you,” he said. “I wanted us to be the ones to grow old in it.”
The memory of David in the house flooded over me, and I gripped the ends of my sleeves. It was so real. I’d seen him there.
Did he see us there, too?
He looked so painfully beautiful in the candlelight. Raw emotion shadowed his face, and I wanted to pull him to me. I had spent months fantasizing about pulling him to me—and never letting him go. “That’s what you want?” I asked. “That home?”
“I want it with you. Only you. Because we belong there.”
I inhaled deeply, absorbing the meaning of his gesture. A future—with me. He’d had enough faith in our connection that he’d bought a house, even knowing it might drive me away.
And I . . . oh, I could see it.
I wanted those things, too. So badly that it hurt me to even exist. But none of that changed the past or the present. It didn’t change the fact that I was scared.
Silence crept into the space between us, save the pounding of the rain outside. Flames danced in the darkness. He stepped toward me slowly, as if testing the water.
“No.” I held up my hands. My voice broke as I said, “Wait.”
“I love you.”
I gaped at him. But why would it surprise me? Hadn’t I known it all along? And didn’t I love him, too?
That had never been the problem. Believing love was enough—that was the problem. I’d thought that same thing as a girl, and my idealistic heart had been torn in half for it.
I shook my head. “No, David, no. I can’t . . . we can’t.” I felt the threat of fresh tears. “You can’t love me.”
He stepped closer and pulled me into his arms. “I love you.”
I pushed against his chest. “No,” I said loudly.
He took a step back. “I loved you from the start, don’t you know that? I never stood a chance.”
Lightning illuminated his face, and an unsteady, hazy future flashed before my eyes. Thunder rumbled low above us before cracking like a whip. I burned and yearned, my fingertips tingling with impatience to feel him.
Instead, I looked down. The carpet sprouted between my toes, and I wished I could crawl into the floor to hide in its welcoming softness. Because I knew what would happen next. The pendulum of emotion inside me swung high and fierce. I felt like crying, like running into the rain and letting it merge with my tears.
When I looked back at him, he basked in the soft yellow glow. Desire to be owned and dominated by him again pulled deep inside. He didn’t even need to touch me.
He fell to his knees in front of me, pulled up my sweater, and kissed the skin underneath. Slowly, he unbuttoned my jeans and pulled them down before running his hands over my legs.
His lips explored me, kissing the backs of my sweat-dampened knees, the insides of my thighs, then my pubic bone through my panties. My legs trembled as I stepped out of my pants, away from him. He cast them aside and pulled me forward by my sweater. He rocked back off his knees and leaned forward to put his mouth on my parted lips but stopped inches away. He remained there as though sucking my spirit out through my mouth, and not only my spirit but my heart, which beat faster and faster because . . .
I’m afraid, David, so afraid.
His body heat radiated and mingled with mine. I wondered when he had removed our clothing. Despite my nakedness, I was flushed. My eyes searched his face. I almost couldn’t decipher the words when he breathed, “I love you.”
I shook my head, blinking back tears. One escaped and drifted down the side of my cheek, over my cheekbones, falling to our feet. “No,” I said. “This is something more.”
I threw my arms around his neck, and our shaking bodies absorbed one another in an urgent kiss. His hands ran along the sides of my breasts and then down to encircle my waist, clutching me against his hard body. Every touch was real and inspired chills over my skin.
We fell back into the carpet that had promised refuge only moments before. My legs steepled, and he drove all the way into me. My hands raked through his hair, his cheek scraped against my neck, and he began to fuck me. When I clenched him inside me, he released a shuddering cry against my skin. His pace hurried, and his thrusts became so powerful that soon our bodies dripped with sweat.
“Look at you,” he rumbled in my ear, “so fucking sexy. So tight, grabbing onto me.”
My hips eagerly met the force of each delicious plunge. “I want to make you come,” I rasped, “harder than you ever have.”
“For you, and only you, I will,” he growled. Thunder vibrated the room. He bucked harder, deeper, a drop of sweat trickling from his body onto mine. I craned my neck to watch as his abs flexed with each drive, and as I swallowed up the thick base of his cock.
As I approached the edge, there was only him to cling to. My vision speckled with white flashes as my body responded, constricting around him and trembling under his hulking body.
“Never letting you go,” he uttered hoarsely. “You feel so fucking amazing.”
“Come,” I begged. I grasped urgently at his hair and pulled him down until our foreheads touched. “I need you, David,” I said against his mouth. “I need you, all of you.”
“No,” he hissed. “Not . . . until . . .”
He’d said it before. He wouldn’t come in me until I belonged to him. And in that moment, I did.
“I’m yours,” I cried. “I’m yours, David. I’m yours, I’m yours.”
“Olivia,” he moaned. His muscles tensed and released, his body convulsed, and he finished me off with unwavering focus. I gasped, arching from the floor as my nerves shattered into a million divine pieces. I writhed into his punishing final thrust, and with a deep grunt, he erupted inside me, claiming me finally.
He collapsed, pinning me to the floor with his solid, sweaty body. Heat radiated from us, engulfed us. My hands touched his shoulders, his back, and his face, pushing the matted hair from his forehead. His hand tangled in my knotted bun. Caught, I couldn’t move as he drew back and ensnared me in a frantic kiss. In that moment, nothing mattered more to me than the feeling of him, real and secure, on top of me.
25
I struck a match and lit one candle on the kitchen table. David and I had dressed quickly in the dark and hurried from the bedroom, though I knew well enough that his spell could not be confined to any particular space.
I went to sit across from him, but he pulled me down, and I fell into his lap. He sat back and rested me against his arm, giving me a quick but sensual kiss.
“Did you hurt yourself?” I asked, capturing his now healed hand in mine. “When you hit the tree?”
“No,” he said.
“I’m sorry.”
“So am I.”
I hesitated and clutched his t-shirt as though he might disappear suddenly. “Did you . . .”
“What?” he asked, tugging on my bun so I had to look up. I could feel his heart pounding, but his expression was soft.
“Did you mean it?” I asked.
His face creased with anguish. “Do you think I would say it and not mean it?”
“I don’t know.”
“I’m in love with you,” he said. “I’ve known for so long, but I also knew it would scare you away. You gave me no choice, though.”
Silence fell between us. With David’s past and my present, I couldn’t tell him that I loved him, too. I looked away and rested my cheek against his chest. “It does scare me.”
He ran a hand over my hairline. “I know it does, but Olivia . . .”
“David,” I replied, squeezin
g my eyes shut and tensing in his embrace.
“You have to move past that and trust in us. For me.”
Bill had asked the same of me. To trust him to steer us in a direction that I’d come to want. “Even without Bill in the picture, I’d still be scared.” I looked up at David. “What if you change your mind?”
“I won’t, but I know you won’t believe me no matter how many times I say that. So you have to take a leap of faith.”
David had always demanded honesty. I gave that to him now. “I don’t know if I can. My whole life has been built around protecting myself from the unknown. From pain. I didn’t realize how deliberate it was until you came along.”
“But you’re also shielding yourself from all the good that comes with loving someone as deeply as you can love me, Olivia. Leave with me now. Tonight.”
Oh my God. Now? There was no more time to make these decisions, but I was scared. Worried. What if David realized he couldn’t leave bachelorhood behind? What if I once again promised a man I loved a future I couldn’t deliver?
I climbed off of his lap, tension settling back in my neck. As the glow wore off, everything I’d been shouldering seeped back into my thoughts, wakening my conscience. “You don’t know what you’re asking of me.”
“Yes, I do, Olivia.” He lifted a hand and ran his knuckles over my cheek before taking my jaw. When he spoke again, his voice was urgent and grave. “I’m asking you to leave him and initiate a divorce.”
Hearing it in such cold, black-and-white terms, my throat closed.
Initiate a divorce—as if I could push a button and walk away as my marriage detonated.
It wasn’t like that.
Divorce didn’t explode. It was a slow burn that incinerated everything in its path. It would hurt both Bill, whom I still loved, and myself—his family and mine, and our friends, too. I’d be responsible for putting all of that into motion.
Cityscape Affair Series: The Complete Box Set Page 53