Take Me in the Dark (3 page)

“Are what I want you to know,” he interrupts.

My heartbeat escalates. I hope he can’t hear it. I try to back up but the wall’s behind me.

He sighs and steps back. “I’m sorry, Laura.”

Laura. Not
solnyshko moyo
. It feels like a world of difference. My bones turn to ice. If he touched me right now, I’d shatter.

“You should be,” I whisper.

“I think it’s best if I go.”

“Why? Because this way’s easier for you? You retain all your power over me by leaving, and you strip me of any power I might have had over you.”

“That’s not what this is.”

“Oh really? Am I supposed to believe that just because you said so? And if that’s the case, doesn’t that prove my point? You don’t get to start something this fucked up and then walk away because it’s ‘unhealthy.’ The only explanation I’ll accept from you is if you don’t want me anymore, because I still want you.”

He’s quiet for a moment. His rough fingers brush the hair from my face. “Are you happy? Have you been happy since you met me?”

My mind goes blank. I breathe unsteadily.
I don’t know. I never even thought about happiness. Happiness was never a part of this
. I don’t want to admit those things, so I turn the question back on him. “Are
you
happy with me?”

He doesn’t hesitate. “Yes. Even before you read my first letter, you were the only thing that made me happy.”

My eyes go wide and sting from being open for so long. I don’t think too much about the fact that I somehow made him happy before he read my first letter. I don’t know quite how to deal with that information yet. So instead, I say, “Maybe I’m happy too.”

He shakes his head. “Desire and happiness are two different things.”

“Now you can read my mind?”

He reaches for me. His thumbs slide over the soft underside of my wrist. “It isn’t the same for you. You want me because you like how I fuck you.”

His words hurt because there’s an element of truth of them. “If you wanted more from me, maybe you should have opened up a bit.”

“I want a lot of things from you I can’t have. I’ve wanted you for so long that I stopped caring how I had you as long as I could take just one part of you.” He lets go and steps towards the door. “I don’t even deserve this much.”

I ground my teeth. He accepted this? It was me that had to accept it and anything else he was or wasn’t willing to give me, because if I didn’t he’d disappear. “Did you know this would never work before or after you fucked me that first time?”

“Before.” His voice is softer. Maybe that’s why it sounds guilty. Maybe that’s why, even more than my anger, I feel my heart breaking for him.

“I’m sorry,” he says after a long moment.

“You’re sorry,” I repeat, smiling humorlessly. “I think I almost hate you right now.”

“I hope you do. You asked me to leave, and you were right to. I won’t come to you again.”

“Oh really?” I laugh. “You’ll have to forgive me for doubting you. I mean, you did say that the last time you showed up to fuck me.”

“I won’t again.”

My hand curls into a fist. “Not even if I bring David up to my room?”

He breathes faster. He’s not as calm and collected as he pretends to be. He obviously hates this, so why won’t he do what it takes to stay?

“I did kiss him,” I say, my voice growing louder, “and when I did, he took a part of me that you will never have. Soon my body will realize what my mind and you already know—that everything between us is nothing more than a beautiful lie.”

His shoulder falls into the doorway. I wonder if this is the last time we’ll ever see each other. If this is the last time I’ll ever get to tell him what’s in my heart.

Do I really want those to be the last words I say to him to be everything between us is a beautiful lie? Is it the truth? I don’t even know anymore.

There are a million things I want to say. I want to scream that I hate him. To tell him that I’m sorry for saying such cruel things, that I really love him. To chastise him for being so mean to me.

I want to beg him to stay.

I wonder if he’s waiting for me to say those things. To say anything.

I shut my eyes and take in a haggard breath.

I hear him step away and think of following him out to the street. I’d grab his hand as he steps through the gate. I’d pull him close and lift his mask just enough to expose his lips.

I wonder what his lips would feel like. If they’d be a warm contrast to the cool rain. How they’d taste.

The door closes. He’s gone. For a moment, my heart races like I’m really running after him. I imagine doing all those things. And after, he pushes me up against the stone wall and continues kissing me as rain falls over us, making us shiver and tremble in each other’s arms as we hold each other closer.

I raise my fingertips to my mouth and press them against my lips. They’re like ice. Something about that coldness breaks the dream. I fall back into the wall and shiver and tremble alone, pressing my cold fingers to my lips, tasting salt.

David’s waiting for me on a stone bench at the park cupping a coffee in his hands. It’s cold, so the fact that he has a Chai Tea Latte next to him—a fact I know without taking a sip—should comfort me. It doesn’t, especially since I know he bought it for me because it’s my favorite. Guilt instead of warmth floods my body.

When he sees me, David smiles, sets down his coffee and waves. I almost turn back. Every weak cell in my body interested in self-preservation commands me to. But I know I can’t. He doesn’t deserve to be treated like that; he doesn’t deserve what happened last night.

“Hey Laura.” He hands me the cup when I get close.

I can’t breathe. I almost drop it. Luckily the stone bench is right there, and I plunk myself down.

David’s eyes narrow with concern. “Laura?”

I can’t look at him. I feel his warm breath on my cheek, somehow slicing through the cold air. He’s close. I feel his thigh shift against mine. My body burns with the memory of my masked lover, of his raw, desperate touch, of myself shattering before him.

I shiver. I knew it was wrong even as I did it, but nothing could keep me from descending once again. If someone I loved like David couldn’t keep me sane, what could?

Briefly, I look up into his concerned eyes.
The last thing I wanted to do was hurt you, and I hurt you so badly
.

“David,” I whisper.

He leans back. “Uh oh. That doesn’t sound good.”

He’s trying to keep his tone light, but he knows something bad is coming. Of course he does. Even if he didn’t know me the way he does, he’d guess something was up. I sound like I’ve just been given a death sentence.

“David,” I start again, but I still can’t bring myself to finish.

He sits up and nodes to my abandoned chai latte. “Maybe you’ll feel better if you take a sip.”

I shake my head.

“At least wrap your hands around it. It’s freezing out.”

It is cold, and my knuckles are red and chapped. Damn it. He’s so kind, and he didn’t deserve to be treated that way by me.

“David, I can’t.”

It takes him a moment to respond. “If you don’t want a drink, you can wait, though it might get a little cold—”

“I mean…” My voice is soft, but he stops as if he was waiting for me to interrupt him. I take a deep breath. “I can’t be with you right now.”

A moment passes. Three men and a woman in an oversized coat walk by. I wish I could curl up under a large blanket and disappear.

“Do I make you uncomfortable Laura?”

“That isn’t it,” I whisper.

“Is it because of him?”

My throat feels tight. Of course it is. We both know that. I don’t want to say anything else, but he deserves the truth. “Yes.”

“I told you I was fine with it. I don’t mind waiting.”

Here it is—the moment where I break both of us.
“It isn’t that. I saw him last night.”

David goes completely still.

“He was waiting in the house when I came home.”

“Wait, he was waiting for you? How?”

“I don’t know. He was upset because he saw us…”

“How did he see us? Was he at the event? Does this creep follow you around? Wait outside your door? You should go to the police, Laura. He sounds like a serious stalker!”

“It doesn’t matter what he is. What matters is what I did.”

His shadow slips over my thighs to the pavement as he slumps forward. “What you did,” he whispers.

My throat’s so tight that I don’t know if I can speak. I squeeze my drink, popping off the lid. Chai tea spills over my hand.

I curse. “It’s so hot,” I explain as I pull my hand away. David retrieves the cap and hands it to me, not meeting my gaze.

I open my mouth. “I—I’m so sorry.”

He freezes. “We weren’t really together. It’s nothing.”

But it doesn’t feel like nothing to either of us.

“I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” I continue.

“You love someone who doesn’t love you back.”

“But I knew that it was wrong. I knew that it wasn’t good, and I did it anyway. I don’t know why I’d do it when…”

“…You knew it was going to hurt.” He finishes when I cannot, his expression agonizingly kind. “That’s what you do when you love someone who doesn’t love you back.”

My eyes start to water. I look away because I have no right to cry right now. I have no right to cry at all, and it’s cruel to do it when he can see it.

He puts his hand on my shoulder.

I shrug him off. “Don’t try to comfort me.”

After a moment, he puts his hand back where it was. “Why? Because it would hurt less if I didn’t still want to comfort and care for you?”

“Yes,” I admit. “I don’t want you to be good to me right now. I don’t deserve it.”

He brushes the hair from my neck. Even though he’s been holding his coffee this entire time, I’m surprised by how warm his fingers are. “That’s a problem, because I want to be good to you.”

I pull away and turn, meeting his gaze. “How could you possibly want that?”

There’s a darkness in his eyes I’ve never seen before. “Maybe because a part of me is cruel. If I was really the kind man you believe me to be, I would let you go right now, wouldn’t I? I wouldn’t touch you, I wouldn’t try to comfort you, because I’d know doing so hurt you more. Maybe if I only loved you, that’s what I’d do.”

Something flashes in his eyes as they narrow in on my lips. He leans forward almost imperceptibly. “You seem to be well acquainted with obsession, Laura, so you know what it means when I say that you are my obsession.”

He kisses the back of my neck, his lips soft and warm on my chilled skin. My body trembles. “Would you like it better if you didn’t see my face? I can do that for you. I’ll be anything you want, if you let me have you.”

We don’t talk on the way over to David’s place. It’s in one of the newer buildings next to campus. When we enter, I’m reminded why they’re notoriously small. There’s barely any space between his single bed and the wall. Though its midmorning, the room is dusky from the yellow blanket hanging over his window.

“Nice curtains.”

The door closes. He doesn’t answer.

I unzip my coat and let it slip over my shoulders onto the floor.

I hear three footsteps and then his arms wrap around me from behind.

“We don’t have to do this,” he whispers into my neck.

I swallow. “You want to watch
Vampire Diaries
?”

He chuckles—more warmth on my bare neck. “I don’t have that here, but we can watch
Venture Brothers
.”

His hands slide down over my sides. My palms slip over his knuckles. “I don’t want to watch anything, David.”

His hands curl into fists. I step away and kick my coat to the side beneath a table. My foot knocks one of the table’s legs and the tambourine on top of it jingles.

I hug myself and circle around him. “This is probably a little fast.”

“Maybe for you. I’ve been dreaming of this for a long time. So even if it’s a bad idea, I’m yours if you say you want me.”

He takes a step forward, then another, until I’m backed up against the wall. All of my previous bravado disappears. I can’t look at him directly.

His hand slides over my hips.

Don’t let other men touch you
.

My shadow lover’s plea echos in my mind, as tactile as the anticipation buzzing beneath my skin. David brushes my cheek and tips up my chin so he can look at me.

His eyes are dark and unfamiliar. I inhale unsteadily. It feels like even my breath is trembling. His grip on my hip tightens. Slowly, he lowers his head. His soft lips touch my cheek.

My fingers dig into his forearms. He pulls me into him and my body molds against his sculpted chest. He kisses my neck, paying special attention to the sensitive place beneath my ear. I moan and run my hands under his shirt and over his back, reveling in his perfect, warm, soft skin.

His expertly trained fingers slip under my shirt and up my spine, unfastening my bra in seconds.

I tilt my head back. My chin slides over his forehead. “Damn, David. How the hell did you do that…”

I feel his lips curl into a smile over my neck. “Do what, sweetheart?”