Chapter 17
Seventeen
MINE
“I DREAMED ABOUT you last night,” Chantel whispered across his cheek.
He could feel those talented fingers of hers stroking his hair. “Was it a good dream?”
“Hmm,” she murmured absently, and started to hum a melody.
“What is that?” he asked as he rolled her over to lie on top of him, watching as her soft raven hair fell down to conceal them from the outside world.
“Air by Bach.”
He closed his eyes and listened. When she finished humming, she kissed his mouth gently. He opened his eyes while running his hand up her naked spine.
“It’s beautiful. What made you think of it this morning?”
“It was playing in my dream. You were there, and we were lying in the sun, letting it warm our skin.”
He ran his hands down to her ass and cupped it gently. “Strange dream.”
“But peaceful.”
Phillipe runs his palm through his hair as Gemma lies with her ear to his chest. He slipped out of her body only minutes earlier, and now, he feels himself slipping from the reality of the moment.
As he lies on his back, staring at the ceiling, he can hear Air being hummed in his ear, and in his arms, he is imagining a woman he can no longer touch.
“Do you always think about her?” Gemma asks, tearing him from his illusion.
“Yes,” he replies stoically.
She falls silent for a moment. “Do you ever stop?”
Phillipe squeezes his eyes shut, feeling his own deception mocking him. “I stopped when I was inside of you.”
He feels her push up against his chest, but he can’t bring himself to look into her eyes.
“You won’t even look at me?” she asks.
Phillipe is disgusted with himself and the delusions he’s clinging to.
It’s bad enough he has given in, letting Gemma touch him in a way he never would have allowed weeks earlier. With each stroke of her hand and each question she asks, he feels himself losing her, and he refuses to let go.
Moving his eyes from the ceiling, he looks at Gemma. She’s still feeling that glow from the euphoria you get from having someone touch you so deep inside that you don’t know where the other person ends and you begin. For him, that euphoria is forever out of reach. It died a long time ago.
“You need to leave.” His face remains impassive. “This doesn’t change anything, and I want to be alone.”
Gemma scrambles off him and scoots away. He watches her climb over the bed to pick up her clothes and silently put them on one piece at a time.
“You don’t want to be alone,” she says. “You want to be with her.”
“Well, you knew that all along, didn’t you?”
Her jaw tightens and her eyes narrow. Spinning on her heel, she marches to the dresser and picks up the journal she placed there, then slams the door on her way out.
Finally left alone, he confesses his sins to her.
Marching upstairs to my room, I’m more than annoyed. I’m pissed off at him, at myself, and at her. Damn it. I throw her journal on the bed.
Moving straight into the bathroom, I turn the faucets on, feeling the need to wash the afternoon away.
The man is infuriating and complicated to the extreme.
One minute he’s silent, involved, and right there in the moment with me.
I’m sure of it. It’s the moment we stop touching, the second that connection breaks, that she’s there, filling his head, getting into his mind, and telling him what to feel.
“Well, fuck you.” I spit at her.
I realize how stupid I must seem. I’m standing in the tiny bathroom, taking my clothes off, and cursing at nothing. I’m going crazy.
After pulling the shower curtain back with much more force than necessary, I step into the tub and turn, closing my eyes.
Tipping my head back under the spray, I feel the warm water stream down over my face.
Closing my eyes, I start to picture Phillipe as he was earlier, lying across the bed.
I imagine him rigid, naked, and hard, his muscles rippling with every breath he takes.
I slide a hand down to my breast and squeeze it tight.
I place a slight pressure on my throat with my other hand while the water glides down my skin and across my lips.
Music filters through my mind as I trail the hand at my breast down my torso, stopping between my thighs.
I squeeze my sensitive flesh and part my lips on a sigh as the haunting melody of “Lux Aeterna” repeats in my mind.
Pushing my fingers deep into my pussy, I can’t be sure why that song stays with me while I picture his tortured eyes and hear his angry words.
That’s when I start to imagine the melody getting louder, more forceful, like the way it was playing this afternoon in her music room when he was in my mouth and on my tongue.
As the fantasy takes over, I thrust my fingers in and out of my body.
The water pools around my hand before it slides down my inner thighs, mixing with my own arousal.
Suddenly, it’s there, and I feel it again—that second elusive presence.
I’m not alone. I stop moving and open my eyes, sensing that I’m being watched.
I feel like she’s here. As I try to focus through the water, I notice a dark shadow pass before me.
A shiver skates up my spine, and I hear the word mine.
Possession ~
We started a new painting today, and Phillipe named it Rhapsody. I liked this one. It was my favorite so far.
“So, you want me naked with Diva across my ass cheek?” I asked.
He laughed. “Yes. Perfect.”
I shook my head at him and raised a brow. “Kind of an odd place to put a violin, don’t you think?”
“It’s an odd place to want to put a lot of things,” he replied sensually. His voice was so deep that it slid down my spine, creating a pool of moisture between my thighs.
Sexy, sexy man, I thought. “I know what you want to put there,” I told him.
I reached out to touch his waist. He was wearing loose cotton pants, and they did nothing to conceal the hard cock pulsating between his thighs.
“Hmm,” he murmured, then stepped closer. “When you’re ready, and not a moment sooner.”
“What if I’m ready now?”
He pressed his lips hard against mine. “You’re not.”
“I’m not?”
He wrapped his arms around my waist as his nose brushed against mine. He shook his head. “No, you’re not.”
Closing my eyes, I asked, “How do you know?”
His fingertips touched my closed eyelids. “Because you won’t have to ask or tell me. It’ll just happen. It will happen, Beauty, and then I’ll have all of you.”
I shivered as I turned my face toward his. “Do you want to start painting now or later?”
He unwound his arms from around my waist as he moved away from me. “Let’s start now, and then I want to show you something.”
Smiling in his direction, I started to remove my top.
He sighed. “This is the best part.”
“It is?” I teased as I undid my pants and pushed them off.
“Yes. When you take off your clothes for me, it shows so much trust and faith. You’re so warm and naked. It makes me so fucking hard that I want to sink deep inside of you and never leave.”
I stood completely bared to him. “Maybe it’s not me who isn’t ready.”
There was a long pause, and before I knew it, his large palms were on my shoulders, his mouth by my ear. “What on earth do you mean by that, Chantel?”
Shivering, I pushed my hips back toward him, so his covered cock was pressing against my ass crack.
“Maybe you’re worried if you take me there, you’ll never be able to leave,” I suggested, pushing his desperation and fueling his obsession.
I wanted him dark. I enjoyed having him want me as much as his next breath.
“Is that what you think? That I’m scared?”
“I think you’re worried that you won’t ever escape me.”
He chuckled darkly, wrapping a large arm around my waist. He pressed a big palm against my naked mound before pulling my ass tight against his thick shaft.
“When I get inside of you, you will be mine,” he told me, and bit my earlobe.
I reached behind my head to grip the back of his and turned to meet his mouth. “Or maybe you’ll be mine.”
Dropping the journal as though it physically burned me, I look around the silent room. The bedroom is empty except for me, the bed, and the small desk, but right at this moment, I feel like it’s occupied by more.
Taking a deep breath, I stand, moving to the window. I feel like I’m losing my mind. Is it coincidental that I heard the word mine while I was in the shower? Did I accidentally flip to that page and subconsciously see it there?
I have no clue, but I spot Phillipe walking down the gravel path toward the lit arbor. That’s when it hits me that I need to get away from here. If I do that, I will lose the story of a lifetime—but if I stay, I might end up losing something much more valuable, like my sanity.
Watching him closely, I notice he’s carrying something in his hand.
He’s wearing a long, dark coat, and his hair looks wet.
Maybe he washed me from him as well. He stops in front of the bench and does something I never would have expected—he drops to one knee and places a single red rose on the bench.
I hold my breath as he reaches forward and runs his fingers over the inscription there. Love looks not with the eyes. Oh, how very appropriate that statement is, I think as I turn away from the heartbreaking moment.
Watching him down there, in what I can only guess is an apology of some sort, I realize I’m not only in danger of losing my sanity but my heart as well. That’s when it occurs to me that I want him, and I want him to be mine.
As Phillipe kneels before the bench and traces the inscription, he closes his eyes and thinks of her.
How very true these words—Love looks not with the eyes but with the mind—seem today, and so be it.
He can’t see her anymore, but she’s the one constant on his mind, especially tonight.
Tonight, he let her go for just a few moments, and she completely disappeared. She left him, and he let her slip away.