I follow one rivulet as it continues downwards, inching its way around my nipple until it drips from the end. It’s the single most cleansing experience of my life. I’m naked and don’t care for the consequences. Perhaps I’m protected by the man behind me. I hope so, regardless of what that protection means to my soundness. He just seems, even after his words, to sheath me by just being here and watching this unfold. Maybe he forced it like he said. I don’t know, and I don’t care either, because as the tears finally begin to dry, and as the thoughts start to creep back in making me question everything again, he walks in front of me, blocking the mirror’s reflection and showing me himself again.
“This is your reflection now, Alana,” he says, his body lowering until he sits cross-legged in front of me and gazes back. There’s no smile, no smirk, not even a frown or a considered comprehension of care. He’s just still, his face disimpassioned and his mouth a calm line of composed grace. “You’ll only see me and what I can give you in return.” My head tilts, hardly able to comprehend the meaning, and not able to find any words to counter his. “It starts here, and it’ll end when I say you’re done. Yes?” I think I’m nodding, although I didn’t move my head that I’m aware of. “Good girl.”
And then there’s just silence again as we look at each other, me tracing his features with my eyes, hoping for enlightenment as I listen to his breathing soothe the moment, and him just staring back and letting me watch him.
“You’re so handsome,” I say unexpectedly. I mean it, as if it’s nothing to do with his physicality, more to do with the composure he holds. “Tranquil.” That seems to cause a small quirk to his lips, not surprising given the word, I suppose, but that’s what he seems to me in these minutes. It’s like I’ve got a hurricane raging inside causing chaotic thoughts, and he’s the tower of light in front of me, guiding me to safer waters, regardless of him causing the chaos in the first place.
For the first time, I feel a small sigh come from me as I blow out a breath and feel his words again. Junkie cunt. The state I’m in.
“No more pills?” I ask quietly, my voice a mere breath of noise beneath my tears. He shakes his head slowly, his hand reaching for my face.
“No phone, no connections to your life, no pills, and no lies either,” he replies, those fingers of his as soft as a feather as they land on my cheekbone and begin to stroke a thumb across it. “You’ll do everything I ask, take everything I give you, and for that I’ll show you the way through to the other side.”
I rest into his hand, feeling his strength and closing my eyes. Whatever will be, will be. Dates or no dates. Love or no love. It is what it is, and will evolve, hopefully helping me find myself again by the end of it.
Chapter 3
Blaine
I ’ve never stared at someone for so long, never been interested enough to do so. Yet I sat there in front of her this afternoon for a little over an hour, just watching her until she left her head looking at the floor and became comfortable with that process. It started as a means to an end, helping her prepare for what will become our ritual, but it ended with me being enthralled with the splendour of her, more so than I’ve ever been before.
The thought perplexes me as I continue along the coast road and listen to her softly humming a tune beside me. I’ve never heard it before, but it reminds me of old soul songs, bluesy notes highlighting flats and sharps rather than the monotone drone of pop culture.
“Put your phone in the console,” I say, as I open the compartment. Her head spins to me, some part of her aggressive little brat saying no before her mouth utters the words. She catches herself before anything comes out, and I watch her dig around until she flips the thing into the console, a huff coming after the event. She stares away again instantly, resuming her song with little care for my demand. It amuses me, making me consider this whole fucking insanity I’m placing us into. I’m still not sure I want to save her or destroy her, but the fucking song coming from her lips seems to be lulling me into thoughts of happiness and comfort, a sense of companionship.
“Tell me about your family,” I say, surprising myself with my own curiosity. She stops her humming instantly and fidgets in her seat a little, her fingers grabbing at her dress to pull it down her thigh some more. “You don’t like the thought of giving me that information?”
“I don’t see its relevance anymore,” she replies dully, crossing her legs the other way to hide her thigh.
I smirk at the move, pleased by what she thinks she can hide now that she’s accepted my terms. She can’t hide a fucking thing from me. It will all be dragged out if it needs to be. It will be raked across and dissected, queried until it gives me enough facts to recognise why she became addicted to pills in the first place. Usually, there are only three key reasons why people became addicts—misadventure, anxiety, or abuse. This comes in varying combinations of physical, mental, circumstantial and emotional factors, considerably changing the dynamic of the key reason, proving the psychological or physiological dependence on a subject or practice beyond voluntary.
“My family isn’t pertinent if there’s no hope of more.” She’d be surprised how relevant family always is. Underachievement anxiety. Fatherly mental abuse. Motherly dependence to the father, leading to criteria that explains a child’s need to become non dependant on anything, and then drug dependant because of that continued anxiety. “It’s not like you’re ever going to meet them, is it?” Probably not. Although I’d like to, strangely enough. “As you said, this isn’t a love story anymore.” I keep gazing at the road, wondering myself what kind of story this is becoming. It is a love story in some ways, one that confounds me, true, but there’s no denying the way the little madam’s mind infiltrates mine unlike anyone else’s has done. She entices me for some reason, proving the heart inside my chest beneficial for something other than simple beating. “Can we just not talk about them? I don’t want them involved in this. They deserve better than you.” The remark cuts deeper than I could have imagined it would, making me frown as I remember the picture of her parents in her apartment. “They’re good people, Blaine. This thing isn’t something I want them associated with.” And that remark pisses me off, deepening my frown to a scowl as I stare at the road. It once again shows a disrespect for my people, assuming they’re unworthy of parental love. And it also negates the fact that this whole ‘thing’ is her fault, not mine.
“You want my help, Alana, you’ll answer any fucking question I ask of you.” Not that I care a fuck for the answer now, more that I want her to obey the principle of our dynamic and do as she’s damn well told.
“What about yours?” she asks, her face turning away into the sun as she closes her eyes, seemingly unaffected by the malice in my voice. “Are they proud of their son’s abilities in the bedroom?”
“Fuck you.” The gravel of my tone shoots out of my mouth before I have control of the words.
“Quite the emotional response for a psychologist. Aren’t you supposed to be dispassionate?” She chuckles on the end of the statement, apparently amused at my reaction. “I mean, presumably they know about your predilections, or do you keep it a secret?” Their faces come straight into my mind, both of them smiling. And then the rush of my mother’s arms around me as she congratulated me. Her perfume, my father’s handshake, the way he spoke to the dean regaling him with stories of when Cole and I were young. “Actually, I don’t know anything about your family. And if we’re being truthful, you tell me first to get the ball rolling. You’re the one who’s asked me to trust you, aren’t you? Are they proud?”
“They’re both dead,” I snarl out. It’s the easiest way to move the conversation on. Her head spins around to look at me, both horror and sadness etched into her features. I only catch a glimpse of it, but it resonates nonetheless, making me feel the same sensations as the day I watched the plane crash on CNN.
“Oh god. I’m so sorry,” she says quietly. I turn to glance at the sea running alongside us rather than
look at the face that offers pity. Sorry? She needn’t be, it’s just one of life’s curses. I don’t need pity or someone to hold my hand. Cole might in reality. It would probably do the guy the world of good to be held and trusted, given a space to wallow in, but not me. “That must be awful. I can’t imagine what it feels like to lose your parents. How did they pass on?”
What fucking relevance is that?
“I’d rather talk about yours,” I counter, trying to nullify the memories that come with family.
“Oh, okay.” She looks back out the window again, brightening her face ready to spring into conversation. “If you like. Well, they’re in the UK, obviously. Both slightly overweight now that they’ve retired, with a little financial help from me. Mum was a hairdresser, Dad an engineer. He made the bits that interlink a plane’s engine assembly.” I roll my eyes at the thought, annoyed at the connection and yet somehow amused by it. “I’m an only child. Apparently one was quite enough for Mum to cope with.” She shifts and looks back at me again, her eyes narrowing slightly. “You’re sure you want me to discuss this?” I nod, trying to sink into her rhythm rather than mourn my own parents any further than I already have done. “I’m not sure what else you want to know, or even why I’m telling you.”
“You’re telling me because you want to take my mind off my own parents. It’s called re-association. You’re diverting me.”
“Oh.”
“Mmm. It’s working. Carry on.”
“Right. Well, they’re nice people. Honest. Trustworthy. They both worked hard to make sure I was looked after, safe. I don’t have any Daddy issues or anything like that, if that’s what this is all about. They’re just Mum and Dad really. Decent, you know?”
“Do you miss them?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I don’t really know. I suppose everyone misses their parents, don’t they?” Her hand flies to her mouth again, eyes wide with her embarrassment. “Oh god, I’m so sorry. That was the wrong thing to say, again.” I chuckle at her, charmed by her concern, none of which I deserve because of the dead body buried six feet underground, the one I put there. I sigh the chuckle away, scarcely enjoying the sense of contentment she’s given me with a few moment’s diversion.
“It all sounds idyllic. You’ve nothing to be sorry for.”
“Do you miss them? Your parents?” she asks quietly, her body turning to face me. I glance to look at her again, trying to remember a time when someone asked me that. No one has, not even Eloise, although she knew better than to look into my mind. I smile at her as she screws her legs up into the seat, enchanted by how small she looks when she’s emotional. “I mean, you don’t have to talk, obviously, but you can if you want to. I’ll listen. Help if I can.” The words make me sigh again and look back at the road rather than entertain that thought, nice as it might seem.
“This isn’t about me, Alana. It’s about you.”
“Yes, but, it can be about you, too, if you—”
“Want it to be?” I snort. “I’ve told you what I want it to be. You know exactly how I want it to be. My emotional health isn’t part of that, other than my predilections as you call them.” I sneak another look, hoping to prove my point with a glare, and catch her expression hardening instantly because of it, the lines of her face drawing into a mask again. “That doesn’t mean you hide from me, Alana. You’re the one who needs help, not me.”
“I’d question that rationale,” she mumbles, her eyes closing again as she twists her body away.
Time ticks by, the coast road taking as long as it always does. I don’t really know why I’m taking her home again. Perhaps it’s because it feels safe there, comforting, but it’s more likely the need to have her in the space I originally wanted her in. For whatever reason, the need to have her inside my own walls, protected by them, is greater than the fear of having her there. This, too, perplexes me as we travel on, the waves crashing against the coastline as we go. I should be taking her anywhere but my home, regardless of the desire to have her there.
“Do you ever swim in it?” she asks, her eyes still closed.
“What, the sea?”
“Mmm.”
“Yes, often.”
“Why?”
“What?” The question throws me off guard, perhaps digging deeper into the psyche of what it means to me rather than accepting the simple answer for what it is.
“Why do you swim?”
“Why are you asking?”
“Because this fucking silence is deafening, Blaine.” I snort out a laugh, charmed yet again by the odd things that shoot from her mouth. “I hate it.”
“You told me you wanted the silence,” I reply, a smile broadening on my face as her contradiction races home once more.
“Not when it’s because of uncomfortable situations. It’s the chaos I want dampening, not your conversation. Frankly, I could use more of it to understand what the hell I’m doing here with you in the first place. It might help, you know? You’re unfathomable.”
“I might want you uncomfortable.” She smiles, her lips rounding with a wicked tilt that makes my guts churn.
“No, you don’t. If you wanted that you wouldn’t be taking me to a place you consider home.” She lifts her dress again slightly, sliding a finger along the crease by her knee and tempting me. “Come on, Mr. Jacobs, or is it Doctor? Either way, by doing that you’re opening yourself up to me, aren’t you? Allowing me to prod at you as much as you want to prod at me. Uncomfortable would have meant going to Priest’s Church maybe, or staying in that ratty hotel room we were in.” My brow rises at her thorough examination of the situation. “Bringing me here,” she says, her eyes eventually opening as we turn onto the final stretch of the coastline, “regardless of our conversation this morning, means you give a shit, whether you want to admit it or not. I don’t need a psychology degree to know that.”
I don’t answer her. I don’t even look at her. The analysis is too close for comfort, and she doesn’t need to know that she’s right. It isn’t any help to her at all to know that she affects me in ways I don’t understand myself yet. Those types of confessions will only hinder my ability to aid her recovery, forging us closer than I need us to be. The whole purpose of my explanation in that bathroom was to distance her from me, to make her realise that she’s on her own in this. Support, while needed for a time, is not endless here. I’m simply being honest, and in doing so will ensure she finds her way out the other end sufficiently enough to guide herself onwards. With or without me.
“You’re not quite the arsehole you think you are, Blaine.” Oh, yes I am. I’m everything she should run from and nothing that she needs. I’m a selfish, twisted fucker who’s using every technique to keep my monster at bay while I help her. “And I don’t believe you when you say this isn’t deeper than the superficial you’re trying to portray. You’re a liar.”
Liar? Not entirely. Not this time.
She just waits in silence after that, the rest of the coast road seeming to take hours as she looks out of the window away from me. It gives me time to ponder everything, analyse it, find a sensible solution to her problem, and mine. Mine being that no matter how hard I try to hold this monster in, I’m constantly bombarded by thoughts of doing anything but giving her the help she asks for. It’s sickening even to me on occasion as visions corrupt the already corrupted, tempting me, goading me. I’m even irritated she’s in as high spirits as she is, wondering why she’s not in tears again from my words, or constantly wriggling from the agony the wounds on her back should be causing. The concerns make me focus on the road, trying to dislodge the shame and elation that collide together. It’s been so long since I’ve had a toy to play with. And this one next to me, she’s everything I want—vigorous enough to challenge me, and durable enough to take my response. It’s a match made in Hell, one that waits for me to burn.
Eventually, the house comes into view, breaking me from my analytical progression along routes no sane
person travels. The image of its sleek white lines brings me peace, causing me to smile as I wind the window down and smell the air. Home. Calming and bolstering. It protects me from the world as much as it protects the world from me. But not anymore, not now I’ve brought her here.
She gets out immediately, not caring for my opinion on what she can or can’t do. It amuses me, lightening my considerably heavy thoughts. So I sit and watch her for a while, gazing at the way the wind picks up her skirt as I take her phone out and put it in my jacket pocket. She seems to blend in with the wind’s grip around her, her arms opening to it rather than shuddering from its incessant breeze. Perhaps she’s more ready for me than I thought previously, more in tune with her body’s needs than I’ve given her credit for. It’s like the Daddy conversation all over again, her mind engaging enough for her to forget this is different and accept it as normal. The visual hardens my cock, making me imagine the kind of fucking I’ve dreamed of and only recently found—with her.
The End (Stained Duet Book 2) Page 4