I start pulling myself up, only to have his hand slap me back down to the ground again. “Stay still. Listen and learn. I will not do this again.” He moves away from me, picks up the drink I was drinking and downs it. “I’m unable to give a damn about you out here. Do you understand that? That is the reality we are now in. The reason I left you with Malachi was so you would fuck something else because you couldn’t help but do so, forget me and move on.”
My eyes crawl up to his at that, an irrational fury surging through my bones. I didn’t fuck anything else. Didn’t want to after him. My mouth opens to counter his argument, give something more of myself to him so he understands. “There is nothing here for you. I am not here for you. Never will be, Mrs Tanner.”
I feel small suddenly. So very small and insignificant. It’s intolerable even to my own sense of reasoning, of needing to be beneath him, under him. Tap, tap. Tap, tap, tap. I sneer at the ground I’m on, remembering myself in the same position when I was at the wake. Him above me whilst I was down and dejected - lost and faltering. I’m not doing that now.
Not ever again.
The thought makes me move, ready for the slap that might come if he hasn’t finished his speech. Pain doesn’t hurt me anymore, not from him. As proved by the body that’s still heaving under the torment of past bruises. And this is lies, all of it. I know it. So does he. Unable? What does that mean? And even if he was able, if he’d reacted differently, I didn’t come to beg him – I came for him to beg for me. I am more than I was that morning when he left me.
Harder, stronger. More formidable.
“You’re a liar, Gray,” I pull my body upright. “A fraud.”
My chin lifts, neck cracking around to ease the tension he’s just put me under, and I stretch each of my limbs in turn. “And I wouldn’t know that if I hadn’t felt parts of you that you’re denying. I don’t like liars.”
I turn to walk away from him, letting my body casually sway through each room I choose to pass by. My fingers push at another small piece of sculpture on a pedestal, sending it tumbling and smashing to the ground along with the one already there. “You will always be here for me.” I look over my shoulder, watching him as he watches me move to another dark and torrid object. Again, it topples easily, splintering shards around his marble floor. “Because I’m a part of you now. You let me in. No one has been inside you like I have. You know it as well as I do.”
A sigh falls from me as I reach the stairway, eyes looking up at the possibilities available there. Fucking. Lots of it. Albeit – I roll my shoulders - that could happen anywhere. This floor. That wall. The dining table I passed by earlier. I giggle and keep walking, climbing the steps as if it’s my route to hell. Maybe it is.
I don’t care.
I want my truths.
Chapter 7
Gray
I gnoring the broken sculptures, I follow the path of shattered remnants slowly through the rooms and then watch as she begins climbing the stairs. Tight. Firm. Everything always damn well is on her. Dark, loose curls spilling down her back. Provocative black lingerie. Lace on top of sheer material. High black heels elongating limbs I can remember wrapping around me.
My dick’s hard, muscles harder.
And now I have insolence to contend with.
Not that she ever wasn’t, but this new version of self-possession she’s presenting is both fascinating and torturous to me. Her hands run along the bannisters, trailing softly, as if caressing the woodwork is the beginning of her seductive dance. It isn’t. She was as tempting the moment I smelt her in my home as she is now.
A few moments is all it took. I paced the kitchen. Held the gold chin in my grasp. Pocketed it as I considered my options, and then she was in front of me drinking my scotch and tapping a key-card as if she had some divine right to be in my space. She doesn’t, but the sad reality is I’d never seen anything as beautiful in my home as that vision. No sculpture. No painting. Not anything other than her and exactly what she is.
I should be harder, firmer. I should sling her out or make her cry, give her a better understanding of what we now are. Instead, I find myself labouring the thought.
Ignoring it.
“Interesting that you’re following me,” she says, as she turns onto the second floor.
I watch her legs sway, enjoying the taunt of her hips still bruised from me. “Don’t you think, Gray? Given that you’re not here for me. Never will be according to you. That must be an analysis you haven’t considered yet.” She stops and looks into one of the guest suites, and then carries on wandering again. “Not your colour.”
Her arms stretch above her head, shoulders rolling with each step, and then she heads right towards my room. A smile graces her face, a light chuckle following it. “Much better. Dark and ominous. Lonely. Poor, lonesome, Gray. What is it that you’re not telling me?”
The sight of her disappearing inside my room, of her hand sliding over the doorframe until her black nails follow her, makes me halt and check whatever thought is trying to overtake sense. Back down these stairs, that’s where I should go. Maybe I could wait her out, or throw her out forcibly. Nothing about either sentiment in my mind agrees with my dick.
I follow again, fully intent on making myself do the right thing, and find her laying on my bed, her chin in her hands and her heels kicked up behind her.
“How do you analyse this?" she murmurs, a sultry smile on her face. “Hmm? Want versus logic? Need versus rational contemplation?” I frown at that question and consider it, watching as her heels swing back and forth. “Is not far enough ever enough? I don’t think so. I want all the way. Down the rabbit hole. Down, down, down until there isn’t any further to go and lies turn to truths.”
My brow arches, wondering where she’s going to go with this. “I’ve never lied to you.”
“But you’re not telling me the truth either, are you?”
She rolls onto her back and stretches out, luxuriating in the sleek, grey sheets she’s happy to crumple and ruffle. “I carried the comforter for a while. Needed your smell all around me, your weight. And then there was fucking you out of me.”
Damned jealousy rears inside me. It burns through my veins, bringing visions I don’t want to imagine. Still, I keep my hands in my pockets, as her hand moves along her skin, and I watch as her legs widen and she inches her fingers inside her panties. “Couldn’t. Nothing was you. You’re the only one of you there is.” A low moan comes from her, as those same fingers sink inside something I’m now becoming desperate for. “Only you. Do you think that’s love? I’ve been analysing it.”
Both my brows raise. That wasn’t expected.
Her head twists to look at me, her low smile spreading further. “Why are you over there when you could be over here? On me. Inside me. I’d like that.”
Treacherously, my feet move before my head catches up with what the hell I’m doing. I snarl the movement away, unable to deny the torment of her, and sit on the chaise nearby to watch. No thoughts or considerations of intent. I’ll watch, process, and then make her leave.
My head props on my hand, elbow resting on the side of the woodwork.
“If you must fuck yourself on my bed, stop talking and get on with it.”
She giggles and turns her head again to look at the ceiling, a sigh falling from her lips as her hand begins swirling under her panties. “Dirty words, Mr Rothburg.”
“I have more.”
Her back arches, ripples of movement cascading over her skin as her fingers delve in deeper. “You always do. Are they true?”
Everything I’ve ever said to her is true.
My tongue licks over my lips as I remember the taste of her, the feel of the lace on my fingers. Her hair in my hands, her cunt tight around me. I ache for that again, have ached for it since I left her, and now she’s here and waiting for me on my bed.
The thought makes me tilt my gaze, as she purposefully moves backwards and hangs her head over the end of the bed.
Her mouth’s open, as she pants through the turmoil she’s inflicting on herself, tempting me with thoughts of her throat. Soft black lines etch the skull in deeper on her skin, as if presenting hollows of hell. Death couldn’t be more of an adept proposition to think about. Relevant. Applicable given her significance to me.
The panties get moved, lowered and kicked off her legs, and then the bra gets discarded, tossed at me as if a gift. All that’s left is a writhing temptress, her skin on display for me and last time I was on her still unmistakeable all over her.
“Keep talking,” mutters out of me, as my hand lowers to my pants.
I want the words. All of them. All the dirt and grit and need for me out of her mouth and into the air around us. Petulant if needs be. As insolent as she feels necessary. I just want that voice whispering more, taunting more, and baiting more. Fuck knows why. I should be carrying her ass out of here, pushing her from my door.
She chuckles and rolls her head to face me again. “You’ll need to touch me for all that filth you’re after, Mr Rothburg,” she whispers, increasing her hand's speed. I glare at that, both annoyed and aroused because of it. “Anything you want. I’m not asking for chivalry. Only for truth.”
Another arch to her back, another drive of her hand, one more fucking moan and I’m standing and hauling her head where I want it without any more thought. She groans at the impact, legs curling up, as I twist her body towards me and keep that head hanging downwards.
The feeling of her skin under mine again is like wildfire raging through me. I lean and lick straight through her breasts and down to her cunt, biting the moment I get to it. A laugh rips out of her, another moan following it as soon as I start sucking on the prize. I can feel her hands working my belt, my dick springing free into her grasp. It’s rampant and angry because of her continued tease, and I grunt as I handle her harshly to get her how I want her.
One more tug to her thigh to widen it and I grab at my dick and ram it into her mouth. If she’s not talking, she’s going to do something else with it. It shunts in hard and fast, as my mouth smothers her cunt. Long strokes. All the way in and all the way out until I can sense her gagging around the intrusion.
A groan falls from me, eyes opening to see my own walls around us, and she keeps swallowing me down. Her teeth scrape, body going lax in my grasp. Nothing but what I want. She’s all mine for however long I want. I could bruise her again, batter her again. I could hold and move, push and force. Lie in sheets and talk afterwards. Listen to that voice of hers for hours, indulge myself with it. Maybe eat something. Laugh. Drink.
Except we can’t.
I lift away from her, eyes watching her black smeared lips, as my dick keeps slowly running in and out of them. Truth? I brace my hands on her skin harshly and growl at my truths. I don’t want them anymore than she does. I want this now. I want myself all over her, and the shove of her body to another position proves it. The jacket and shirt get tossed from my body, my knees moving her legs apart as far as they’ll go, and I’m inside her before I can question the act.
Everything’s fast, furious and aggressive. My hands bite into her skin, pushing more marks into places that didn’t have any. Mouths meet again as forcefully as they normally do, no calm to temper the storm we’re making. And my throat groans for more, my body aching and craving for it to carry on forever. It won’t, but this is the last chance at it and I’m having everything I can.
Teeth scraping. Dick forging in severely. Bitter, dirty words winding both her and me up for more power and more force. I flip her and spread her wider, fingers forging into any hole I choose and tongue following so I can remember the sweet taste of her come coating my insides. She bucks and moans, groans and slithers along my sheets likes she owns the fucking things, until she manages to get me back inside her again and starts fucking herself onto me.
I watch that, watch her small form milking everything I am, and let her pull the come from me at her own pace. That’s the only truth of me and her I’ll accept or allow. A connection made, a sexual orientation joined. Nothing more than that, irrespective of how much something else might appeal. It means too much, no matter how much I try to deny it. She does.
And this is done because of that fact.
My come spills over her cunt’s lips, as I breathe through the tension and pull out of her. I watch as a line of it still stranded in the air tries to keep us connected, and eventually back off some more and tuck myself away. The belt gets buckled, weak legs trying to keep me upright, and I take a last glance at her perfect body still lying face down on the bed until she turns over to face me.
A long breath pulls into me, frame turning away from her. “Get out,” I mutter, glaring at the bank of glass windows. My hands land on my hips, eyes searching the reflections for her movement. “Don’t come back. I won’t be as agreeable next time.”
No movement that I can see from her.
I close my eyes, willing her to just move out of my space so this doesn’t have to turn into what’s coming if she doesn’t get the message.
She giggles behind me, as if we’re still in some game she’s controlling with her new version of self. We’re not. I was weak, tempted, as always with her, desperate for her perhaps, and docile in comparison to what I will become if I have to, to prove a point.
“You do realise you’re nothing but a slut to me, Mrs Tanner, don’t you?” I grate out, turning to face her again. My eyes roam over her skin, a mask of indifference on my face replacing what she would have seen moments ago. “As you’ve just proved. Again.” Still no movement. Just a continued sultry smile.
“You’re still lying, Gray. I know you too well now.”
Alright. We’ll play it her way if we must.
My hand grabs her hair severely and drags her from the bed, uncaring as her body tumbles to the ground and she bounces across it. Four strides and she’s out of the room, bitching and shouting at me to let go, as she tries to get to her feet. I’m not letting go. She’s going out of this apartment and not coming back into it, and she can scream as loud as she wants about that.
This is over. And I am done.
Have to be.
More bouncing off the stairs, more yells and twists in my grip, as if fighting me might make a difference, and I eventually get to the main floor. She’s hauled along that, too, my eyes focused on getting her to the elevator entrance and nothing else. I glare at the heather sitting on the console table, glare at it and curse my time before now, and then push the button and wait.
Light crying begins in the space beneath me. Sniffs and mumblings about something. I close my eyes to the sound of it, part unable to bear it and part ready to destroy her because it damn well means something to me. Regardless, my grip stays rigid in her hair, muscles primed for the only thing I can do to help her out of this fucking situation we’re in.
The doors open and she gets pushed in, my face another mask of dismissal and revulsion. “You do not know me, Mrs Tanner,” I snap, aggressively. She scrambles up against the steel wall, naked body curled tight into the corner and the first sense of real fear I’ve seen on her face since Malachi first played with her. “You never have.”
I walk back for the kitchen, grabbing her coat and bag to at least give her some privacy. They’re tossed onto the floor next to her, my fingers pressing the eighth floor button as soon as it’s landed. She can go now. Use that new found freedom to organise a better life free of me and the pills that made the world around her distorted. Reality is what she needs. Real. “And you certainly don’t want my truths, Mrs Tanner.”
The doors close, my eyes closing again with it, and I pull the chain from my pocket to rub it through my fingers. She’ll get there. As she says, evolve some more.
She just won’t be doing it with me.
Chapter 8
Hannah
T he elevator door opens before I’ve managed to get my coat around me. I shiver in the corner of the cold box, looking out at the expanse of corridor in
front of me without seeing any of it. I feel used, dirty. Different. Huddling. Scared even.
Another sniff pulls into me, eyes blinking the tears back, and I look at the buttons that go all the way up. No button for his floor, though. Only the card slot that is now unavailable to me. And yet I can still taste him on my lips.
Who was that? I don’t know him. Angry. No, not angry. Hateful. Dismissive.
Cold.
The trembling continues, as the door begins to close. I stick my leg forward slowly, watching as the steel instantly stops on my foot. Where are my heels? Faith's shoes? Gone. Probably scattered around in his apartment. My eyes look upwards, searching the ceiling for him. There’s nothing there to find. I’m alone. Thrown out, as if immaterial.
The thought makes me lift myself slowly, pulling the coat onto my bare skin and my bag towards me, before I eventually find my way back to the door of my apartment. It’s as empty as I feel when I enter it. Desolate. I glance around at the debris I left here, trying to work out what just happened both back then at the beginning and now after this. Nothing makes sense again. It did before. My plan of action should have worked, but now it’s all confused and jumbled again.
My hand taps the side of my head, the heels of my hands finding my eyes to try and rub some sense back into it. No sense. Messy. Alcohol? I walk lethargically to the wine rack and pick up the first bottle I find, drinking from the rim the moment I’m able to, and then place it on the counter top. No. I’m not having that. That was a lie again. Truth.
What is it?
I pick up the bottle again and look around me, ignoring the mess and rubbish so I can retreat into myself. I’m not done here. I have questions. I shrug out of the coat and toss it absently, as uncaring for it as he was for me, and then reach for my cell.
Three rings and he answers.
“He threw me out,” I snap.
A Sorrow of Truths Page 5