Chapter 20 #2
His rage is absolutely palpable. I can feel it rolling off him in waves. He’s still so very angry over what took place all those months ago. I feel as though he is reliving it right before my eyes.
As quietly as possible, I move back a step, not seeing any means of escape at this moment. I’m not really sure what I should do, so I revert to my questions.
“What was she supposed to do?”
Turning swiftly, he pins me with angry eyes. “She was supposed to tell him to fuck off. She was supposed to tell him that she was mine, just like I told Susanna!”
In my mind, I flip through the many articles that I read, trying to catch up. I need to remember all the details.
Coming up short, I ask, “Susanna?”
Shaking his head, he starts to laugh malevolently. I frown, not understanding the rapid shift in his mood.
“Yes, Susanna, the tall blonde the press splashed all over the goddamn place. She was much like you, Gemma. She was the fuckable blonde that he told her I was fucking.”
I let the details, as confusing as they are, seep into my mind. “He told Chantel you were sleeping with Susanna?”
Slowly, Phillipe starts to make his way toward me. I take another step away, and my back meets the wall. Beside my shoulder, I feel the frame of the painting, and I know I am trapped. I am trapped between him and her.
When he’s finally toe to toe with me, he leans down so our noses almost touch. “The good ambassador told Chantel that I had been fucking Susanna for months. He then went on to describe in detail what she looked like, where we went, and how often we did so.”
I swallow slowly before I ask a question that I’m not sure I want the answer to. “Were you?”
His angry eyes skewer me before he moves to the left, placing his mouth by my ear. “The only blonde I have fucked in the last three years is standing with me now, pinned to the wall, and probably getting wet.”
He bites down on my lobe as I take another deep breath. I’m embarrassed that he is right. I am wet. His rage is beautiful. It terrifies me. It impassions me.
“She let him touch her,” he says angrily.
I turn my head against the wall, connecting my eyes with his. We are so close that I can see the flecks of gold and brown around his irises.
“I can’t imagine that she would let anyone touch her after you,” I say, knowing that I’m going to have the same problem.
“It wasn’t her body that he touched, Gemma.”
I blink and focus back on his hypnotic stare.
“It was her mind.”
My breathing accelerates. Any notion I had about wanting to get away has now been replaced with lust. I want him. I want to reach out and stroke him to ease his pain, but his eyes are wild. I’m almost afraid of the wrath I might unleash if I make the slightest misstep.
“Let me tell you what she wrote in that journal entry,” he says.
His left hand rises to cup my right breast. I arch into his grasp.
“She typed about how we arrived at the gala. She typed that I left her. She said I left her standing in a room full of people, and she felt more alone than she ever had.”
While he’s talking, his fingers slide inside my blouse, and he shifts back to look down at me. Bringing up his right hand, he grabs the other side of my blouse as his angry eyes start to heat up.
“She wrote that she had never felt more disconnected from me than in that fucking room.”
As the curse leaves his lips, he rips my blouse apart. The buttons pop away from the fabric, falling around us as he places his right palm flat on my chest, over my heart.
“Your heart is beating fast, Gemma,” he informs me, moving in. He’s so close that I have to lean my head back on the wall to look up at him. “Are you turned on? Scared? Or both?”
Swallowing deeply, I open my mouth and ask, “Why did you leave her?”
Calculating eyes meet mine and narrow. He reaches down and starts to undo my pants.
“I want to fuck you,” he tells me.
I know what he’s doing, and I’m determined to make him talk. “Why did you leave her, Phillipe?”
His jaw clenches as he looks to my left, staring at the image of Chantel hanging in silence.
“Shut up,” he growls as he pulls down my zipper.
Belatedly, I realize that I can’t. I’m finally breaking through, pushing him into a place he doesn’t want to go, and I’m relentless. Like a bloodhound, I can smell when I’m close.
I stop his busy hands. “Tell me.”
Glaring at me fiercely, he spits, “Fuck you.”
I know he’s lost. He’s not thinking about anything now except losing himself. The only way he thinks he can purge the memory is by fucking it away.
“So what, Phillipe? Are you going to rip down my pants and fuck me against the wall right beside her?”
His eyes flame. Twisted as it is, I find that I’m getting off on his fury. The angrier he gets, the more aroused I become.
“You’re going to fuck the blonde right in front of her to finally prove that she had a right to be angry.”
He slams his fist against the wall near my head. “Shut the fuck up, Gemma.”
Reaching out to press my hand against his pants, I grip his cock hard.
“Is that why you hurt yourself? Do you think you let her down that night? If she were here, would I even exist to you?”
“You already know the answer to that.”
“And you want to fuck me anyway. Why?”
Tearing my pants apart roughly, he pushes my hand away from him, slamming it up against the wall beside my head.
“Because I can’t fucking help myself.”
He takes my mouth with all the violence I can see swirling in his eyes, and I can feel his teeth on my lower lip.
He bites it right before thrusting his tongue deep inside.
Moaning against his lips, I arch my hips toward him, trying to get him closer.
I raise my free hand to touch his side, but he clutches it, securing it on the opposite side of my head.
He tears his mouth away from mine, and I tremble at the lust burning in his eyes.
“Now what, Gemma? You got anything else you want to say?”
My breasts strain against the fabric of my bra as I think about my next question. He thinks he’s won. He thinks that he’s pushed me beyond my questioning—but not this time. This time, I want to know. This time, I want an answer.
“I want to know why you left her.”
Releasing my hands immediately as though I’m a hot flame, he steps away and drops his eyes to where I’m propped up against the wall, half undressed. He looks beside me, trailing his eyes over her in the Sacred pose.
I feel my own anger rise. “Why did you fucking leave her, Phillipe?”
He swallows. “I wanted to see if I could.”
Making it crystal clear that he has no problem doing so with me, he walks quietly out of the room.
Left standing in the shadows while the music from the next room still filters through, I clasp both sides of my blouse, covering my body as I crouch to pull my pants back up. I can feel tears threatening.
I can’t believe that I let him reduce me to this—a person who is aroused by anger, who almost willingly let a man have sex with me just to find release. I hate what is happening to me, yet I can’t stop myself.
Sucking in a breath of air, I try to compose myself and step away from the wall. I walk over to the journal lying on the floor and bend down to pick it up. Out of the corner of my eye, I see something move in the shadows.
Somewhere deep inside of me, I know that if she were to be anywhere, it would be here, but thinking it and feeling it are two different things. Gripping the leather-bound book, I stand and turn to face the wall. The six images hanging there silently mock me.
“He wasn’t with her that night,” I say aloud.
I shake my head at myself. What the hell am I doing? Now I’m reassuring her?
I can’t explain why, but it feels imperative for her to know this. So, like a fucking crazy person, I whisper, “He couldn’t even be with me.”
I turn and start to make my way out. Just as I reach the door joining the music room, I hear her laugh coming from the still-playing CD and swear she says, “He already was.”