28 Baz
28
Baz
I don’t see Dorian Gray for two days, during which time I begin preparing to move out of Charleston.
It’s not going to be a speedy process. I have property here that I’ll need to sell, final orders to fill, things to pack. But I’m getting out of town as quickly as I can. My Realtor can handle the sale of the house and the shop, even if I’m back in Columbia.
The faster I get away from this hotbed of supernatural activity, the better. Columbia should be a safe place to go for now. Eventually, once my property is sold, I’ll move even farther away.
Canceling my participation in the upcoming art shows is the hardest part. I wanted those opportunities so badly. But I can’t be selfish. I can’t be like Dorian Gray.
I’m standing in the doorway of my second bedroom, staring at all the bits of Dorian I’ve painted and wondering what to do with them, when someone raps on my door.
My stomach lurches. As I walk to the front of the house, I try to slow my breathing and my pulse. But they both skyrocket again when I open the door.
Dorian stands on the steps, the sun gilding his hair, his angelic blue eyes shining at me.
The pain I’ve been feeling, the raw ache at the absence of him is salved immediately. His very presence is soothing, exciting, terrible and wonderful, all at once.
Sibyl’s words from days ago float through my mind. You never get over Dorian Gray.
But I need to get over him. For my own sanity, for the good of the fucking world.
I don’t open the door more than a crack, and I keep my leg positioned to block the gap. I’m not sure where Screwtape is, and I can’t risk letting him out. I can’t afford to lose anyone else right now.
“Please, Baz,” Dorian says softly. “Just a moment of your time. I’m begging you. I’ll get on my knees if it helps.”
I hesitate, gripping the door handle. “What do you want?”
“You haven’t answered any of my texts, emails, or messages.”
“I’m ghosting you. I’m sure you’ve done the same thing to others. Unpleasant, isn’t it?”
“Very.” He looks down, scuffing his shoe over a strip of peeling paint on the wooden step. “I wanted to ask if I could see you once more before you move.”
“And now you’ve seen me.”
“No, I mean one more excursion together. I accept your decision, and I won’t try to change it, I promise. But you and I—we have something. I haven’t felt like this about anyone in…well, you know how long.” He lifts his pleading gaze to my face. “I swear I won’t message you, stalk you, or anything else if you’ll only spend one more afternoon with me. Come for a picnic on my boat. We’ll be on the water, so there’s no chance of skriken or murders.” A faint smile hovers on his lips.
“That’s it?” I eye him suspiciously. “Just a boat ride? No more trying to convince me to paint you?”
“No more of that. I just miss you. I’d like to spend a little time together before you leave if that’s all right. Like our time on Hunting Island. Best day of my life, I think, except for the driftwood monsters.”
He grins, and warmth spreads through my chest.
I shouldn’t agree to this. But he’s right—there’s something special between us, and maybe we both need closure before I step out of his life forever.
That word— forever —hurts. It hurts so badly. It carves a bloody furrow into my chest, right through my heart.
When I meet his eyes, I see my pain reflected there. He’s hurting deeply. Letting himself feel the torment of this rift between us.
It gives me hope, knowing that he isn’t pushing that emotion away. Instead of retreating into apathy, he’s suffering on purpose, making the choice to be more human. I’ve heard people say that suffering makes one a better person, and while I think that’s mostly bullshit, I do believe it can make someone stronger inside. Dorian could use that kind of personal strength, especially if one day it translates into moral strength.
I’m proud of him, and I want to show it somehow. Reward him for this one small step along the right path.
“A picnic and no talk of paintings,” I say. “I guess that would be all right. Come back in an hour, and I’ll be ready.”
***
Dorian’s boat is a sleek, pretty thing called the Seraph , and it skims over the waves like a ballet dancer on a stage. We race out of the harbor into open water until we’re far from the coastline. The sun heats my skin, presses a stinging palm to the back of my neck.
After a while, Dorian turns off the motor and we just float, alone on the sea, nothing on the horizon at all. The isolation seeps into my bones, generating a faint sense of alarm even though I keep telling myself I’m perfectly safe. The boat isn’t sinking, there aren’t any piranhas or giant man-eating sharks, and I’m with Dorian. Dorian who, in spite of his past, seems to truly care about me.
The boat creaks faintly, bobbing on waves that glimmer so brightly under the sun that I have to squint, even though I’m wearing sunglasses.
Dorian opens the cooler in the bottom of the boat and reveals a stash of little sandwiches and half a dozen Necromancer beers from Frothy Beard Brewing Company—best local craft beer I’ve tasted.
“Hell yes.” I grab one after he takes the caps off. The sour fizz of the cold liquid refreshes me, sending a soft burr of comfort and confidence through my body.
I’m far away from land. Far from dead neighbors and monsters who can tear bodies apart in an instant.
Dorian plays music through the boat’s speakers—a playlist that blends his favorites and mine. We sip beer, and we munch on sandwiches, and I begin to doubt my resolution to abandon him along with everything else. When we’re not talking about moral codes and life goals, being with him is easy. He fills my heart right up, makes me smile. He’s interesting. Sweet. Irresistible.
I suppose I could move to Nashville and be near him. That would be far enough from the site of the buried relic; I wouldn’t have to worry about causing more havoc.
But if I stay with Dorian, I will eventually give in and paint him. And if I paint him, I will never be sure where I stand with him—whether he’s with me because he cares or because he feels like he owes me. Or because he wants to keep me close in case he needs yet another painting.
I can’t live in his shadow. I can’t be with someone who doesn’t care how much he hurts people, who refuses to acknowledge the harm he causes.
Like Sibyl, I have to detach and disengage.
Except sitting here in the bright air, with the water rippling all around us and Neil Diamond’s rough, crooning voice flowing over the water, I want my life to always be this. Always Dorian, his lithe figure draped across the seat, his long fingers tapping the edge of the boat in time to the melody, the cold beer dripping condensation onto his hand. Personally I’d rather be the one dripping onto his hand…
God, I have to stop thinking like that.
“I called Sibyl yesterday.” Dorian’s eyes are unreadable behind his sunglasses. “She says she’s building you a new website.”
“Oh…yeah. I think it will be a lot more user-friendly. And it will look a lot better, too, which is important for my brand, no matter where I end up living.”
“Of course.”
Silence curls between us, thick and cloying.
“I apologized to her.” He pushes the words out, like each one weighs his tongue. “I—We talked.”
“Good.”
“And I donated the things you sent back,” he continues. “To a charity auction.”
“That’s great.” Oh god, why is this so hard? Why does he have to make it worse by showing me that he’s trying to be better? Fuck.
“I’m not saying that to convince you of anything.” He tips down his sunglasses, unveiling the sincerity in his eyes.
I nod, swallowing, running my fingers through the condensation on my beer. “Thank you. For not trying to change my mind and for—for everything.”
His jaw tightens. “Don’t do that. Don’t say goodbye to me. This move away from Charleston doesn’t have to be goodbye, Baz. You know that. It doesn’t have to be the end between us. I can follow you wherever you go.”
“Like you followed Basil,” I whisper.
He doesn’t answer, just changes his position and starts the boat again. The motor thrums to life, and we skim across the water, the breeze rushing over my heated face, drying the sweat that was filming the back of my neck.
I don’t think we’re headed back to shore. “Where are we going?”
“I want to show you something.”
My first instinct is to protest and insist we head back…but the tree graveyard was such a beautiful surprise, and I can’t help wondering if he has something equally gorgeous and inspiring to show me. So I wait.
After ten or fifteen minutes, Dorian slows the boat.
“Look.” He points to a wooded island on our right. Among the trees stands a pillared house, gleaming white in the afternoon sun.
“It’s beautiful,” I breathe.
“Let’s go take a look.”
“But it’s private property.”
Dorian laughs. “For a girl whose tattoos proclaim her as a rebel, you are certainly obsessed with minding the rules.”
“My tattoos are in defiance of pain,” I tell him. “But I’m still cautious by nature. You know why.”
He glances at me, his blue eyes softening. “Someone with your trauma is bound to be cautious. But trust me, this will be fine.” He guides the boat into an inlet and ties it to the little wooden pier jutting out from the pebbled beach. Then he leaps out of the boat, spinning on his heel and offering me his arm with consummate grace. “Leave your bag on the boat in case the owners show up and we have to make a run for it.”
Even though I always feel kind of naked without my phone, I leave the bag behind and step out of the boat, breathless and wild because we’re doing this, we’re exploring someone’s island without permission. Our feet crunch the gravel path as we head toward the house.
“Who would want to live way out here?” I muse. “You’d have to travel forever by boat to do any shopping. What if you forgot something at the grocery store? And I’m pretty sure Amazon doesn’t deliver to islands.”
“Not this one, no.” Dorian mounts the steps to the porch and peers through the front window briefly. I follow more slowly, eyeing the litter of leaves along the wall and around the pillars. There’s a weathered rocking chair nearby, creaking slightly in the breeze.
Dorian tries the door handle, and it tilts downward without resistance.
“No need to lock up when you live way out here,” he says. “Let’s look around.”
There’s a brittle eagerness to his manner, a bright hurry to his movements. He’s hiding something. Some kind of surprise? Oh god, what if he bought me this house? That would be so sweet and so misguided.
“How can you be sure the owners aren’t home?” I ask.
“Did you see any other boats tied up at the dock?”
“No, but—”
“Just come on, Baz.” He breezes into the house, and I follow him slowly.
Inside, the place doesn’t smell musty or abandoned. In fact, it smells freshly cleaned. Dorian leads me into the wide front room, which is completely bare except for a couch, several floor lamps, two easels, and a long table laden with various types of paints, brushes, and related supplies. Pale-yellow sunlight pours into the room from a series of floor-to-ceiling windows.
On one easel stands the framed portrait of Dorian, painted by Basil Hallward, still in its acrylic case.
On the other easel stands a blank canvas of approximately the same dimensions.
A corrosive dread hollows my chest.
Oh, no, Dorian. No.
Dorian steps between the two canvases, his hair gleaming in the shafts of sunlight. An eager, pleading pain shines in his eyes.
“You see how perfect it is,” he says. “You have everything you need. The kitchen is fully stocked with food and drinks. There’s plenty of light, and best of all—privacy. No one but you and I need to know what happens here. If you accidentally kill me trying to put my soul into the new portrait, you can take the boat back and keep living your life like I never existed.”
“Dorian.” Sorrow and exasperation color my tone. “We talked about this. I said the only thing I’m willing to do is put your soul back into your body.”
“And I told you why I can’t agree to that.”
“Then we’re stuck,” I tell him. “And you bringing me here was a waste of time. You lied to me. To my face. Did you lie about Sibyl and the donations, too?”
“No, that was real.”
Well, at least there’s that. It helps a little…but not enough.
“Take me home.” I turn on my heel, ready to stride out of the house and head for the beach.
“No,” Dorian says softly.
The darkness in his voice makes me face him again. Every line of his lovely face is ice-hard, and his eyes gleam like frosty stars.
“What do you mean?” I falter. “Stop looking at me like that, and let’s go back.”
“There’s no going back, Baz. Not for you. Not until you do what I need you to do.”
The world congeals around me, time slowing into a hideous ooze of elongated seconds. And bleeding through the seconds is pain—a searing sliver of breath-stopping pain right through the pumping muscle of my heart. I’m bleeding internally, and his words are the blade.
“I’ve purchased things for you,” Dorian says. “Shoes, clothes, cosmetics, other supplies. You’ll be comfortable.”
“Comfortable,” I echo.
“Yes. We’ll both be comfortable here until you finish the work. I’m sorry to take such steps, but it’s urgent, you see.” He points to his old portrait. There are two new holes, each barely larger than the head of a pin. “I told you I was running out of time.”
“So you decided to kidnap me?” My voice shakes with anger. “You bastard.”
“Don’t act so surprised. I warned you that if you couldn’t listen to reason, I’d have to try other methods.”
“Other methods like kidnapping me? Threatening me?”
A shiver of uncertainty crosses his face. “Threatening you? No. Just giving you time to think. Extra motivation.”
He says it like he’s reciting a line, and I frown, suddenly suspicious. “Was this your idea or Lloyd’s?”
The answer shows in his face—another tremor of uncertainty. “I make my own decisions.”
“But Lloyd suggested this, didn’t he? Damn it, Dorian, why can’t you see the influence he has over you?”
“This isn’t about Lloyd!” he snaps. “It’s about you refusing to show me this one kindness when I have given you everything. How many times do I have to eat you out and promise you my love before you finally deign to save my life?”
My eyes sting, but I blink furiously. I won’t cry right now. I won’t.
“That’s the evil of your portrait talking,” I tell him. “The rot of it, corrupting the good parts of you. This is all coming from your twisted sense of self-preservation, your sick obsession with your own youth and beauty. Narcissism and selfishness, combined.”
He paces toward me, a tall oncoming threat with burning blue eyes. “That’s right, Baz. I’m evil, rotten, twisted, sick, obsessed. I’m a selfish narcissist. I told you there wasn’t anything left in me worth loving, but you refused to believe it. Beguiled by my goddamn face, lured by my body like everyone else, you willfully ignored my warnings.”
“I didn’t ignore them. I understood them. I understand you, all of you. Even the horrible side.”
“So you hate me.”
I release a cracked laugh. “That’s the sick part. I think I actually love you. What does that say about me, that I can see everything you are and still care?”
Pain contorts his handsome face. His fists clench at his sides. “It makes you a damn fool,” he whispers.
He’s gritting his teeth, holding himself rigidly in place as I slowly skirt around him, toward the door.
“I’m leaving,” I say. “Don’t try to stop me. If you let me go, I’ll try to forget that you planned to keep me as your captive.”
“I have the key to the boat. And I’m not taking you back to shore.”
The glitter of triumph in his eyes fuels my anger. “What the actual fuck, Dorian?” I reach to my hip for my purse, planning to grab my phone and call someone—and then I remember.
He told me to leave my bag in the boat.
“Shit,” I whisper.
Dorian’s eyebrows lift slightly. He saw the movement. He knows what I was reaching for, what I’m thinking.
“Don’t run, Baz,” he warns.
I make a dash for the door anyway. He catches up before I can even get it open, his chest slamming into my back as he pins me flat against the door, my cheek pressed to the paneled wood. His hands close on my wrists, firmly holding them to the polished surface. His body is a firm wall of muscle at my back, his breath puffing hot against my hair. I writhe, bucking, but he crowds closer, pressing in tight.
“Stop fighting me, Baz.”
My breasts are smushed against the door. I don’t have an inch of space in which to maneuver. And god help me, my panties are illogically, inappropriately soaked. Maybe something inside me is just as darkly twisted as he is.
“Why couldn’t you just accept my answer?” I whisper.
“Because you don’t really mean it. When you love someone, you can’t let them die.”
“You can if that’s what is best for them and for everyone else.”
He keeps breathing heavily into my hair, and then he whispers, “For someone who claims to love me, you have so little faith in me. Maybe all I need is a clean slate. A fresh start. Someone to help me stay on the right path.”
“I’m not your moral compass. I won’t sign up for that.”
“I didn’t ask you to make all the effort for me. I just asked for your help. A chance . And you’re denying me that, Baz. Just like he did.” His tone is brimming with bitter rage.
“I. Am not. Basil.” I wrench fiercely, trying to break free. He inhales, a sharp hiss, and his hardness flexes against my backside.
A tiny moan escapes me—half desire, half betrayal. Dorian urges his hips forward a little, and his left hand releases my wrist. His fingers skate along my hip bone, searching for the waistband of my shorts. When he finds the edge, he pulls the stretchy material down a few inches, smoothing his fingertips over my skin.
I bite my lip, hating myself for wanting this right now, for craving him. A tremor ripples through my body.
“This would change nothing,” he says harshly into my ear. “Do you want me to keep going?”
I’m panting, my eyes glazing over already. Traitor—I’m a traitor to myself. A traitor to every shred of moral decency I’ve tried to preserve, because I want Dorian Gray to angry-fuck me against the door of the house where he plans to hold me prisoner.
That’s some messed-up shit.
And I want it so badly I can’t tell myself no.
“Do it,” I whisper. “Do it hard.”
With a low sound of assent, he plants one hand between my shoulder blades, and with the other, he rips down my shorts, taking the underwear with them. Grabbing my hips, he tugs my ass back, pushing down on my spine at the same time so I have to bend a little. I wait, my bare, damp skin keenly sensitive to the flow of cool air through the room.
The rasp of a zipper, then Dorian plants the head of his dick at my entrance. Shoves inside.
I splay my palms and forearms against the door while he rams into me roughly, each thrust a scintillating shock to every nerve I own. We’re alone—I don’t have to be quiet—so I cry out, frantic sounds, helpless sounds, hating myself for it, but damn, he feels like fucking heaven.
Dorian hooks one hand around front, between my legs, applying pressure in—oh god—just the right spot. Between the hard fullness of him inside me and that warm hand cupped between my legs—Shit, he’s rubbing and thrusting at the same time and fuck —
I come so violently I scream and twist, my nails dragging down the wood of the door. I’m screaming breathlessly as he steps back, pulling me with him. He bends me farther over, curving his body on top of mine, gaining more depth, pushing slowly, deeply, in and out. He’s bracing me, holding me together while I shudder and crack apart.
“Dorian,” I shriek faintly. “Dorian, I hate you for this… Dorian, I can’t… I—”
“I know, love,” he says thickly. He pulls out a little, drives in deep, and comes apart with a raw groan, flooding me with heat.
We stay there, hunched like desperate animals, shuddering, gasping, locked together. Finally he takes himself all the way out of me, dripping come on the clothes pooled around my ankles.
With quivering fingers, I drag my panties and shorts back up my legs. They’re damp from me, from him. It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters right now, except the pounding ache in my heart.
I turn to face him as he’s zipping up his shorts. He runs a hand through his blond hair before his eyes meet mine.
“Baz.” His voice is hoarse. “I’m leaving you here tonight. It’s perfectly safe. I’ll come back tomorrow, when you’ve had a chance to think.”
I don’t try to chase him down or change his mind. I sink onto the floor while he locks me in.
Minutes later, the boat motor roars to life in the distance, and I slump over onto the floor and let the tears come.