Tear You Apart (12 page)

Chapter Eighteen

Other friendships had come and gone in college, but the one I’d forged with Naveen that first day always stayed. He drove me crazy. We fought, sometimes like brother and sister. Sometimes like the lovers we’d never quite managed to become. He told me he loved me one night while he was drunk and sick, in between heaves. I told him I loved him over the phone, when we were apart for the summer and the boy I’d been dating dumped me without warning.

Tempestuous. That was the best way to describe our relationship. Up and down, love and hate, lust and affection. Yet it endured through boyfriends and girlfriends, breakups and makeups.

He’d begun college a year ahead of me but had failed a few classes, which meant we were slated to graduate the same year. It was a tough one for me because I was determined to graduate “on time” even though it meant carrying an extra-large class load, including a killer accounting class that threatened to destroy my GPA. I was constantly on edge about my grades and also about my relationship with Ross, which had been steady for close to a year, but which had recently gone “on a break.” Naveen, for the first time in all the four years I’d known him, was without a girlfriend of any kind.

We’d kissed a few times over the years, usually after we’d been drinking. We’d shared a bed more than once, though we’d never even come close to having sex. He was my best friend, my rock, the one man I could count on to make me feel beautiful when I needed to. And finally, after four years of on-and-off flirting and drama, Naveen asked me to be his girlfriend.

We had been drinking, but weren’t drunk. We were in Naveen’s room with the lights off, squeezed into his narrow bed with The Cure playing on repeat. Finals loomed on the horizon. Then graduation. And after that...neither of us was quite sure.

“But I want to be with you, Betts,” he’d said. The cotton-candy of his voice soothed me. His hand had been warm in mine. “At least try it, right? Give it a shot.”

I was anxious about my grades and my future. I’d been waiting forever, it seemed, for Naveen to ask me for something more than the hookups I’d always managed to turn down. And now that he’d asked me...

“I don’t know what to say.”

His mouth had brushed my ear, then my lips. The kiss got deeper as he put his hand flat on my belly, but poised to move lower. “What is there to say? We’re meant to be together. C’mon, Betts. Let’s do it.”

“Be together?”

“Yes.” There was a short silence. “Let’s fuck. Please. I want you.”

The thought of it was exciting and scary, the end of something I’d come to cherish. Even if it meant the beginning of something else, I couldn’t say yes. So instead, I told him I needed time to think. I got out of bed and left him there, and a week later he greeted me at the door of his room with another girl behind him and a smirk on his face that to this day I haven’t truly been able to forgive.

We never talked about that night in his room when he told me he wanted us to be together. Naveen flirts with me all the time. He’s good to my kids and polite to Ross. He’s made me a part of his family, given me a job. He’s still my best friend.

And he still hasn’t forgiven me for what I’d said to him about Francesca.

It’s been months now since his confession, and he has barely talked to me about anything but work. Today he’s meeting with a small group of women who all seem to be related. They want “something sexy but not trashy” for someone’s apartment. They all look a little trashy to me—lots of makeup and jewelry, high heels with designer jeans. Fake nails. Naveen, of course, is in his glory. Practically preening. I wonder what the love of his life would think if she could see him flirting and trying to upsell these women who wouldn’t know art if it gave them a boob job. Then I remember he told me that was how they’d met, when Francesca came in to buy something. Maybe he’s auditioning a replacement.

I’ve been used to my friend’s flirting for so many years that it had stopped bothering me, but today it sets my teeth on edge. It could be hormones, my body hurtling me without brakes toward menopause, and in the meantime turning me upside down in a maelstrom of what Ross liked to call “lady emotions.” It could be the lack of sleep I’ve had for the past week or so. I haven’t been able to fall asleep, and when I do, my dreams have been bad.

Or, I admit uneasily, as I watch Naveen drop a wink to one of the women and let his hand rest way too low on another’s back, his fingertips skimming the top of her low-slung jeans, it could be jealousy.

He leans too close to murmur something in an ear, and I can’t watch anymore. I get up from the desk to close my door. Hard. I need my friend, but I know that makes me nothing more than selfish. If I didn’t have my own burdens, I’d still be letting him stew without a second thought.

He’s the only person in my life who would understand this, though. The only one I’d tell. I couldn’t even reveal this to Andrea, my best friend since forever.

I don’t answer the knock on my door, but Naveen opens it, anyway. He holds out a thick envelope and a package tied with brown string. “Can you deliver this for me?”

“Don’t you have a service for that?”

His dark eyes glint, but he doesn’t smile. “It’s some things for Will. Prints that didn’t sell, and a couple of framed shots he’s decided to keep.”

Does Naveen know? I say nothing. He puts the packages on my desk.

“I’ll give you his address,” Naveen says. He could be pretending he doesn’t know I’ve been there.

I decide I don’t care. I’ve been his secret keeper, his enabler, his alibi. I stand to grab my coat. Naveen hasn’t moved. In order to get past him, I will have to push. We stand that way for what seems like a long time until at last he sighs.

I put my arms around him without thinking. Hold him close. I stroke a hand down his hair, the curls at the base of his neck. It takes him a few seconds to put his arms around me, but when he does, he turns his face to bury it against my neck.

“Why did I ever let you go?” he murmurs against my skin.

“You never had me, remember?” Sometimes, even old and oft-repeated conversations never become too familiar.

“I should have.”

“We’d have killed each other, and you know it.”

We stand that way for another minute. His fingers squeeze my hips. I rub his back in small circles, much the way I used to comfort my daughters when they were upset.

Naveen pulls away to look into my face. “I love you, Betts. You know that?”

“I know you do. I love you, too. Can I go deliver these packages, or are you going to sob all over me?” I tug gently at his hair and let him go.

He takes another few seconds before he moves away with a small, quirking smile. I could ask him if he knows, or guesses, but I don’t want to know if Naveen thinks Will and I are having an affair. He kisses my cheek.

“Don’t bother coming back to work,” he says magnanimously, as if he’s my boss or something. “Take the rest of the day off.”

A raise of my brows is all the answer I give. He chuckles, glancing over his shoulder at the tinkle of laughter coming from the women in the other room.

“No, really,” he says, looking at me. “Don’t come back to the office.”

Chapter Nineteen

I’ve brought pastries and coffee, and the packages are growing heavy while I wait in front of Will’s door. I haven’t been able to convince myself to knock. If I don’t do it soon, I’m going to have to put something down to ease the ache in my muscles.

He might not even be home. I purposefully didn’t call—I didn’t want him to tell me not to come. I’m so stupid.

At last I knock, faintly because of my full hands. So softly he might not even hear it, and I can turn around and walk away. I can have a service deliver the packages, or Naveen can take care of it, after all. I’m not his errand girl....

The door opens.

“Hi,” Will says, not looking at all surprised to see me.

I hold up everything in my hands. “Naveen sent me. But I brought goodies.”

He steps aside to let me in, and closes the door behind me. He isn’t alone. Sitting at the large island in the kitchen is a small boy about three or four years old, his legs swinging from the stool as he finishes a plate of something chocolaty. Beside him is the blonde from the Connex picture.

“Thanks for bringing this.” Will takes the packages, peeking into the top of the envelope. “I can do something with these. Better than having them sit around the gallery, right?”

“Right.” I clear my throat, unbalanced now that I’m holding only the bakery bag and paper holder of coffee cups.

“Come on, Misha,” the blonde says brusquely, barely giving me a glance. She has a hint of an accent I don’t recognize, and her voice is colorless and without flavor. “I’ve an appointment.”

Her voice is low and husky. She tugs the little boy’s shirtsleeve, and he reluctantly slides down from the stool. His mouth is outlined with crumbs.

“Can I come next week, Daddy?”

The word stuns me. Will ruffles the kid’s hair and reaches to pick up a small backpack I hadn’t noticed, one emblazoned with robots. He presses it into the blonde’s hand. She slings it over her shoulder and finally gives me a tight nod.

“I’m Elisabeth,” I feel compelled to say. “I work with Will. Rather, at one of the galleries that feature his art.”

She couldn’t care less, that’s clear enough. Maybe I don’t rate. Maybe she’s stopped caring about women in Will’s apartment. Whatever it is, she gives me a tight nod and him a grim face.

“Next week I’m out of town,” she says. “Misha will be with me.”

“Okay, so when you get back, buddy.” Will bends down to the kid’s level, holding him by the shoulders. “I’ll see you then. You can come for the whole weekend, okay?”

It’s not enough—I can see it in Misha’s face—but he nods. Much like his mom. He looks like her far more than he resembles Will, though there is something of him in the shape of his brows. It could be the flavor of his voice, an echo of Will’s, though Misha’s is more like a placid lake than the ocean.

“We’ll see.” She doesn’t offer her name. She takes her son by the hand and leads him to the door, glancing once more at me without expression or seeming interest. She pauses to give Will a harder look.
“Je vais le faire appeler. N’oubliez pas que vous me devez l’argent pour son école.”

There are a few beats of silence when he closes the door behind her. He stands for a second or so, palm flat against the panel, shoulders a little hunched, before turning to me with a wry grin. Will shrugs and edges toward me. For the first time in my presence, he looks as if he’s wishing for a cigarette.

“I thought...you didn’t speak French.”

He smiles faintly, takes the pastry bag and coffee from me and puts it on the island. Peeks inside. “Yum.”

“I should’ve called first,” I offer, and hesitate, my words fading. I feel stupid.

He gives me a shrewd look. “You think so? Why?”

“Well...”

His gaze flickers at the packages, over me, toward the door, around the kitchen, before finally settling on mine. “You’re just dropping off some stuff for Naveen. Right?”

He’d called me once, and I didn’t answer, and I’d texted him once with the same result. We haven’t spoken since the day I walked out, after sucking him off against the wall I could reach out and touch if I took only a few steps in that direction. I want to scuff my toes along the tile floor, but keep myself still. I straighten my shoulders. Lift my chin.

“Yes. So. I should go.”

“Okay,” Will says mildly. “Thanks. See you.”

He doesn’t walk me to the door. My fingertips skid on the metal frame before I find the handle and turn it. Then I’m pushing it open and walking through it. Into the hall, bare concrete walls, the far-off sound of sirens filtering in through the wire mesh covering the open window at the end of the corridor. The elevator is directly in front of me. I’ll be in it in a minute, the door closing behind me, beginning the rattle and shake of ancient gears and wires that will take me all the way down.

I put one hand on the concrete wall, next to the elevator call button. The concrete’s rough and raw enough to scrape my skin when Will’s voice makes me turn. Blood beads in the wrinkles of my fingers.

His mouth is on mine so fast I shouldn’t be ready for it, but the truth is I’ve been ready for Will to kiss me since the second I walked through his front door. Our mouths open, tongues meet. His hands anchor my hips; mine grip his shoulders. Then higher, to clasp behind his neck, to toy with the softness of the hair there. His kiss travels from the corner of my mouth, along my jaw to my neck, and I am lost.

I was lost before I got there.

I turn my head to give him full access. His teeth are sharp, but the soft heat of his tongue soothes any sting they’ve made. A hiss escapes me, not because he’s hurt me, but it must sound that way, because he pulls back and looks up and down the hall.

“My neighbors,” he says after a second. “They’re kind of nosy.”

They’re also very quiet, but I guess just because I haven’t seen or heard anyone else in this building doesn’t mean they’re not there.

“We’d better go inside,” Will says, kissing my mouth.

As if I’m going to say no. I laugh into his mouth, tasting his smile, and let him lead me step by step toward his front door. He hasn’t stopped kissing me when we cross the threshold, or when he kicks the door closed and pushes me up against it. Not even when he presses his thigh between my legs, nudging upward against the barrier of my dress. We’re tangled.

Breathing hard, he breaks the kiss to look into my eyes, searching them for...what? I don’t know. I don’t care, just then, what he hopes to find or expects to see.

I put my hand on his shoulder and push, not gently, but not cruelly, either. I push him until he edges back a few steps, and I move past him without breaking eye contact until the last possible second, when I turn and walk backward so I don’t have to look away. One step. Another. Three, four, five, and I’m in the hallway leading to his bedroom.

Will doesn’t move.

I retreat another step. He stays still. We don’t move, long enough for me to watch the motes of dust dancing in the shafts of light coming in the windows overlooking the street.

It’s now or nothing; I either take this next step or I go home.

I turn my back, but glance over my shoulder as I do. His room is to the left, toward the back of the apartment. The door’s cracked open, and when my fingers brush it, it groans. Inside, his bed is neatly made, the headboard of dark scrolled metal, the dresser and matching armoire a surprising and delightful art deco style. The far wall is a bank of floor-to-ceiling windows, all the blinds raised, the sun shining in so blinding it’s impossible for me to see if anyone is in the building across the way.

Behind me, the door creaks.

And then his mouth is on mine.

I’m not ready for it. Teeth crash. I would pull away if I could, but he’s molded to me and backing me up, fast, toward the bed. All I can do is take the kiss, all the way. Deep. My head spins at the taste of him, and I hold on to him even harder so I don’t fall down.

When the backs of my knees hit the bed, Will holds me, so we ease onto it instead of tumbling. He’s on top of me for only a few seconds before we’re turning, rolling, and I’m straddling him with my dress pulled up, out of the way. My knees grip his hips. The scarf holding back my hair slips so that strands fall in my face, and he pushes them back so he can get at my mouth. I cannot get enough of him.

His hands move over my breasts, cupping me, before one slides inside the neckline of my dress. Under my bra, lace and satin, not new but definitely chosen with him in mind. He finds my nipple, already hard, and rolls it between his thumb and forefinger. My mouth is on his throat when he does that; I bite a little too hard. I don’t mistake his hiss for anything but pain, although he doesn’t complain. I lick the spot anyway, remembering how it felt when he did the same.

Will makes quick work of the buttons at the front of my dress, pushing it open. I sit up straight so he can get at my breasts. The bra fastens in the back and he deftly unhooks it. The fabric falls forward, and I put a hand up to catch it before I’m completely exposed. Everything is hands and mouth, distraction, yet I can’t quite let myself be half-naked in front of him.

His mouth moves gently along the curve of my jaw. “No?”

“I...” I shouldn’t want to. “I can’t.”

Will pulls away to look at my face. How could I have lived my entire life without knowing this man? His eyes are gray and green, and I smooth my fingertips over the arches of his brows. I touch the sleekness of the hair that falls in front of his ears.

“Because of this.” He touches my left hand. The ring.

“That’s not why. It should be.” I didn’t think I’d be able to speak, but the truth slips out with a taste like sunshine on water. “But it’s not.”

“Then...what?”

I would pull away, but he’s got me held tight, with his hands on my hips. Somehow we’ve managed not to fall off the bed, though he has one foot on the floor and one leg stretched out toward the pillows, and I’m on his lap with a leg curled around him and the other half bent behind me. Awkward and a little uncomfortable, which neither of us noticed before this pause.

“I’m...I haven’t...” I haven’t been with another man since I was twenty years old, skin unblemished, stomach flat, breasts that had never nourished twins. I’m forty-five years old, and while I don’t hate what the mirror shows, I’m not sure what I’ll do if he doesn’t like what he sees.

Will brushes my hair from my face again with an expression so tender it makes me want to weep. Without shifting me from his lap, he tugs the scarf from my hair. He holds it up.

It was a Mother’s Day gift from Kat when she was in elementary school. Ugly. It has horses and horseshoes on it, a pattern of black and gray, but I love it because it was a gift from my child. It’s soft and oversize, and it feels like her gap-toothed grin and the soft brush of her hair when she hugged me as I opened it.

The fabric slides through his fingers when he holds it up. “Use this.”

I don’t understand. “What?”

Will wraps the scarf around his neck, the ends dangling, and grips my hips again. “Use the scarf on me. Blindfold me.”

Startled, I laugh. “What? No!”

He smiles. “Yes.”

Neither of us move. His erection presses against me. I look into his eyes.

“Why?”

“Because you’re worried about how you look to me,” he says. “I don’t want you to worry.”

The idea roots like a weed, growing into a blossom in a heartbeat.
Vanity,
I think.
Thy name is Elisabeth.

Will takes the scarf before I can. He ties it over his eyes, arranging the material so he’d really have to strain to peek. It tufts his hair in the back and covers most of his face except his mouth, which is slightly open. His pulse throbs at the base of his throat.

He’s waiting for me to touch him.

And I do. Slowly at first, just a brush of my fingers over his shoulders. Down his arms. Over his chest. The way his tongue slides over his lower lip makes me bold, and I slip my hands beneath his shirt again to find the tight pebbles of his nipples with my palms.

Will sinks back against the tossed pillows, his head tipped back, and I imagine his eyes have slid shut under the barrier of the scarf. I push his shirt up, watching his face carefully, but though his lips part and a soft sigh escapes him, he doesn’t move or protest. I shift on his lap a little to get better access to his body.

He’s lean, but not wiry. No fake tan for him. Pale, smooth skin on his ribs and belly. Over the jut of his hip bones, I run my fingers. Across the soft brush of hair below his navel.

“Sit up.” It’s not a request, and he doesn’t hesitate.

I pull his shirt up and off, careful not to dislodge the blindfold. His chest hitches a couple times as I toss the shirt aside. His flesh pebbles into goose bumps. When I run my hands over his shoulders and chest, he smiles. I can feel the steady but fluttering thump of his heart beneath my palms. I touch the bird tattooed there.

“What’s this?”

“It’s a crane,” he says.

I let my fingertips trace the lines of it. “Why?”

“It’s a symbol of good fortune.”

I want to lick it. I want to kiss and lick and bite every piece of him, and I start with his throat. I press him against the cushions again, my teeth taking his flesh harder than before. I don’t want to hurt him...but suddenly, I do want to mark him.

This thought makes the breath catch in my throat. I sit up. My heart pounds, and I press my hand to it, as though I could make it slow down by doing so. I have to close my eyes when the room threatens to spin, but only for a second or two.

This is the truth. I have been in love. I have been in lust. I have made good choices and bad ones, I have been smart and I’ve been stupid. But I have never in my life felt the way I do now, here, with Will.

I don’t think. I move. I tug at his belt, then the button and the zipper beneath it. In moments my hand is in his pants, inside his briefs. The angle’s wrong, I can’t really stroke him the way I want to, but I don’t care that it’s awkward, because the feel of him in my palm is enough to make my clit pulse.

He makes a noise, and for a second I think he means to stop me, but then he relaxes again against the pillows. His chest rises and falls. He licks his mouth, and I can’t resist leaning to kiss it. Deep and long, tongues stroking the way my hand now strokes his cock.