Miss You Mad: a psychological romance novel (12 page)

Trying not to scrabble at the clerk's chest with his nails the way his breath scrabbled like an angry lion at his own, William shook his head. His voice won out over all those that leaped like lords-a-dancing in his head. "No. I don't need the address."

He hurried back to his chair. The coffee had acquired a brown scum that matched the mood that blanketed him. William wanted to throw his phone across the room because it wouldn't bring up fast enough Hannah's opening page. More than that, he wanted to trumpet his rage when he realised the painting that was nearly complete on the screen, the one Hannah painted right there in front of him, was the exact same painting on the far wall where he sat. She didn't paint a second copy. It was the same painting.

He zoomed in the screen, staring at her naked back, looking for the daisy chain of bites he'd left on her skin like petals taking flight.

The skin was clean.

Voices, angry, vibrant voices threw themselves against the inside of his skull. Accompanying those voices came the rush of floodwaters clearing any semblance of medicinal fog. His own version of Akashic records, a sort of mental index card box or, Book of Life, allowed imaginary thumbs to flip at light speed through the file.

"The artist paints live on the net."

"Sorry, unable to deliver."

And most incriminating:

"Have you transferred that money for Miss. Hastings to the Yarmouth branch?"

William squeezed his eyes shut. No, no it couldn't be. She hadn't left the city. She wasn't gone. He was vaguely aware that the clerk touched his arm. Something inside William screamed. Something let loose and began rattling.

"Are you okay?" Came another voice. One that sounded like the clerk's.

William gasped and looked up. The male clerk looked concerned; he chewed the inside of his mouth.

William wanted to nod.
Not so, my lord;
he wanted to say to the man.
I am too much i' the sun.

The clerk backed away. "What in the hell are you talking about? I'm no lord."

That thing that rattled around inside wouldn't whispered straight through senses, down his arms, to his hands, his fingers. Those fingers curled, and clenched. The nails dug into his palms.

"Hey man," the clerk said. "Are you okay?"

"No I'm not okay." Came a voice that didn't sound like his own. It was harsh and loud.
All is not well.

Hamlet knew. Hamlet knew that things were not as they should be and William listened to that voice. It drove him straight out of the cafe and onto the street where the throngs of people jostled him and stole his breath. Those people stared at him and crossed themselves as if he were evil. Some of them sneered; some growled like feral beasts. William's heart tapped against his rib cage. It tapped harder, faster. Something inside told him to run. Run fast.

And all because of the painting on the wall. The painting that looked exactly like the one Hannah was working on. What did it mean? Had she, like the bank teller suggested, gone to Yarmouth? And Yarmouth was where? Down the street? Across town?

Across country?

We took Hannah's rental car out to Pembroke. I knew my way in the dark to that spot as well as I knew my own garden. The moon, though it wasn't full, offered plenty of light. Once past the hospital, we came to a wharf and derelict fishing shanties.

"Look at those shadows," Hannah murmured as she slowed the car to a crawl. She pointed to a large dark void created by stacked lobster traps.

"God. Look at that." This time she stopped the car in the middle of the road. Without bothering to pull over to the shoal, she jumped out and scrambled up the small hill to a falling down building. I knew what was inside; I'd been here plenty. I wondered what she'd think of the cache of forgotten barrels.

I slipped over to the driver's seat and stuck the car in gear. Within seconds, I pulled into the dirt driveway that had she been patient enough, would have noticed made a path straight up the middle of the village of deserted but not abandoned shanties. At one time they'd been used as living quarters by poor fishermen, but were now utilised, quite practically, as storage sheds by wealthier ones--lobster bringing a prettier penny these days.

Turning off the engine, I rolled down the window. Peepers peeped. I cleared my throat and gave a shout.

"What did you find?"

Nothing came back. Only the song of tiny frogs. I got out.

"Hannah?"

She made a delighted squeak; it came from around the bend. I smiled. Couldn't help myself. I knew she'd found the tumbling building whose roof bent in the middle as if it were the curve of a woman's waist. That unpainted, long unused building stored barrels upon barrels upon barrels. Some stood like little soldiers outside; most piled high on top of each other, were inside, visible through the paneless window. If she liked shadows, she'd find plenty there.

I shuffled my way up the path and found her staring into the darkness between the sentry barrels. "Look, Daniel." She crouched so that her eye level was about the middle of the barrels. "Look at the view of the water between these." She motioned me closer. Hunkering next to her, I peeked out of the shadow created by the barrels and into the black water.

"If you think of the moonlight on the water as milk, then the cloud shadows are almost like little sponges drying up the puddles." She indicated with her hands how the barrel edges formed a frame for the living painting.

"Neat," I said, and quaked over the word because it was such a stupid thing to say.

She moved closer, lifting her face to mine. I swallowed convulsively, as I pictured those full lips stretching wide to take me in the way she had back at the pub. She smiled, obviously reading my thoughts as she pulled my mouth down to hers. Her lips had the same satin texture on my mouth as they'd had around my prick.

I stuck my tongue between the gap in her front teeth. She skimmed the surface of mine with the tip of her own tongue and then nipped it with her teeth and stepped away. No more than three heartbeats, and she stood naked in front of me, her toes burrowing into the grass.

"Fuck," I said.

"Yes, Please," she answered.

A sense of desperation rose to my throat as I peeled off my clothes. I ran my fingers down her throat, pausing at her clavicle. Of its own accord, my thumb traced the ridge of bone, finding her sternum and then as though it were plunging recklessly into the unknown, my hand dropped to her breast, cupping it for a long moment. I heard my own sigh a heartbeat before my other hand reached behind and thrust her toward me.

That was the breaking moment. With her skin against mine, I went mad. My tongue couldn't taste enough of her skin; it ran the length of her throat until it met her earlobe and I dragged my mouth to hers. I sucked in her tongue and massaged it with my own, not ever getting enough of her to satisfy the burning in my crotch that had somehow found its way to my throat. I was a starving man in that moment needing the savor of her breath. My hands bit into her ass cheeks as I ground myself into her hips. I knew she felt my erection; it was already doing its best to seek entrance, already throbbing with the same searing lust that stopped up my throat.

I lifted her onto my waist and sweet God she wrapped those luscious legs around me so tightly I thought I'd be able to walk for miles without her losing grip. But I had no intention of walking. Not even a single step. The way my cock slipped in the cleft of her ass all I could think about was ramming myself into that tight bud and pumping until I lost the memory of my own name.

"Fuck," I said again against her ear as her lips worked their way to my throat. "You're going to kill me."

I staggered when she used the back of my waist as leverage to piston her way onto my cock, but I had the presence of mind to hold onto her so that I could lower us both to the grass. I pulled out from that tight pussy, with every intention of burying my cock deeper. I pushed her legs as far apart as they would go, putting one hand beneath her knee to lift it. Nothing would stop me from taking every inch of her; splayed in front of me like that she had no defense, left no barrier. I had all of her in whatever way I wanted and I knew none of it would come close to being enough.

When I drove into her again I could have sworn I felt myself take root. I wanted to stay there, seed myself there, push on until my balls tightened up so small they found their way inside too. It wasn't enough and yet it was too much. I needed to do it again and again.

I think she bit me at one point. I even think I begged her to do it again. All I truly knew was that fucking her was what I was made for. It was the moment God looked down on creation and saw that it was good.

It was divine. And all along she begged for more. She told me I was perfect.

"Fill me," she said. "Every dark space. Take it."

When I came I could have wept. It was too soon. It would always be too soon.

She touched my cheek. "Damn fine, Daniel," she said.

"Really?"

"Really." She passed me my shirt.

"What till you see what I can do with the lights on."

She laughed. "I can't wait." She sat up, looking over her shoulder. "How far is the house?"

I took a deep breath, letting the oxygen fuel my brain instead of my dick. "Right," I said. "Let's go."

We got dressed and I cut across the rolling sand dunes where grass had grown knee high, she close on my heels. I passed the ruined boat hulls abandoned on high ground. Slicing this way and that with my arm, I cut a path to the road and turned to look at her.

"See? Not far. We were just about here."

She peered off into the darkness. "What's over there?"

"The beach. And the house sits about a hundred yards from it."

The house, all 800 square feet of it, was nearly obliterated from view by the overgrown grass that hadn't been tended in four years. In the dark it seemed smaller than during the day. No lights revealed the front door; no path led to an entrance.

"We'll have to rummage around," Hannah observed. "If we're to find a way in."

"We're not going in," I answered. "It's been locked up. But we can look through the windows at the back."

"You know where the windows are?"

"Of course, and I know where the door is. But just because the ladies are dead, doesn't mean the place doesn't have an owner." I took Hannah's hand and lead her through the over growth and past the cellar entry. The bow of windows protruded out the back like they always had. Skylight panes joined the windows to the house. We stopped facing the middle. Hannah gasped.

"I had no idea."

I nodded, even though she probably couldn't see it in the dark. "That's where their studio was. Right there."

"I'm sure it gets beautiful light," Hannah murmured, more to herself than to me. "And you say they had no electricity?"

"Not until the last year. By then Helen lived alone and her nephew begged her to get hooked up. Everyone says they must have been two special women to live alone like that at their age with no power."

"Oh," Hannah said. "They had power."

I had the feeling we were talking about the same kind of power.

"And it's exactly as it was the day she died?"

"Yup. In daylight you can actually see cards on the kitchen table and a beer bottle on the studio table that one of them was gluing barnacles to."

Do you really think he'll let me rent here? Do you?" She stared at me. "What could be better than an artist renting their studio?"

"Well, I do know how to contact him. Because I took care of her account when she was alive, he got me to witness her estate holdings when she passed away and he acted as executor. I'll call tomorrow."

"Good. And I'll call Howard tomorrow. Tomorrow could be a perfect day."

It was no small feat getting Hannah back into the car and away from the dead painters' house. She'd been quite taken by the idea of sunlight streaming in through the studio windows and creating shadows all through the small space. So taken had she been, in fact, that she made me stand in various places before the panes to see which way the moonlight would strike me and what type of shadows the interior would incur.

Eventually, however, I did manage to coerce her back into the car. The entire drive, all ten minutes of it, she devoted to how excited she would be to set up shop right on the beach. A beach, mind you. She'd never walked on a beach until she came to Yarmouth, let alone smell the salt, or paint the scenery. Imagine, Hannah Hastings living on the beach. I got annoyed.

"It's just water." I snapped.

By now we had rounded the historic horse fountain at the end of the stretch and were turning onto Main Street.

"Just water? How can you take such a thing for granted?"

I shrugged.

"Have you ever lived in a city?"

I shook my head. "I went to school in Halifax. I suppose you don't count that as a city." I turned off onto Grand St. and into the hotel parking lot.

"Well," she said holding onto the door handle. "It can be quite smothering. I didn't realise how smothering until I came here. I love the open air. I love the people." She yanked on my sleeve. "I love you."