Chapter 10 Selene #3
I contented myself with giving him sideways looks while he focused on driving. He grasped the steering wheel firmly in one hand while leaning his head on the other, thinking who knew what kind of thoughts.
Neil often seemed to be lost in his own world, far away from everything…me included. It was like he retreated to some secret space in his head, and the door was barred to anyone else.
In his black jacket and jeans with the sweater I’d so recently used to keep myself warm, he looked every inch the enchanting beast.
His gaze was cold, his face perpetually frowning and unreadable, and his mouth lush and capable of biting, rousing me and stirring me up like none other. The lines of his face were firm, his jaw defined.
His clean smell hung around in the car’s interior, which cut through the air like a dart.
All around him, an ominous aura of darkness hovered.
Neil provoked a dangerous and painful kind of love, an otherworldly torment.
An eternal punishment that was scarier than death itself.
His beauty struck me like a bolt of lightning—terror and electricity at the same time.
The feeling was like a thick cloak of fog that obscured my common sense, bewildered my soul, and annihilated my sense of self.
My want for him refused to give me a break as my feelings only grew and grew.
I reached over instinctively and squeezed his thigh.
Neil reacted to my unexpected touch with a slight indrawn breath, but he didn’t move.
I, on the other hand, narrowed my eyes at the feeling of his powerful muscles underneath my fingers, with only a layer of jeans between me and his warm skin.
I moved my hand up a bit higher, and Neil didn’t stop me, allowing himself to be fondled.
I was surprised at how calm he appeared, especially when I reached his groin and began to trace the curve of his penis.
He continued to stare at the road, concentrating, but I knew he was very aware of my hand pressing on his visible bulge.
“I’m driving,” he chided me before glancing quickly into the rearview mirror and grabbing my wrist to pull me off him. I gave him an impish grin—I had been expecting the rejection.
He had just confirmed my theory that Neil always needed to be the one who decided when to engage whenever someone showed any interest in him physically.
“So you are capable of rejecting a woman’s advances, then. Why do you find it so difficult when it comes to Jennifer or one of the others?” I asked.
“Are you trying to start a fight?” he snapped, pushing the hair back off his forehead.
“No. I just want to tell you you’re an asshole,” I shot back at him.
“You want to dredge up the exclusivity thing again, is that it?” He sighed in frustration.
“No, please continue,” I said sharply, waving a hand in the air. “I certainly wouldn’t want to bother you with such a trivial issue.”
“Good, that’s settled, then,” he answered flatly.
I shook my head in resignation and leaned my head against the window, letting the unhappiness flow through me.
More and more, I found myself flip-flopping between moments of wild joy and the utmost despair.
My entire romantic experience consisted of one guy, and as far as I was concerned, I’d never be able to completely understand Neil.
Sometimes it felt like he couldn’t live without me, like when we were in bed and he claimed me with all this longing he had inside him and pleasured me until I fell apart.
Other times, he was so distant and uninterested.
His behavior was erratic, possibly because he was afraid of exposing any weakness to me. Even when he’d told me about Kimberly, I still felt like he was putting up a huge, unscalable wall to hide himself from me.
Was he still afraid I was going to judge him?
I didn’t know what else I could do to make him understand that I accepted him just as he was.
I sighed and was only distracted from my thoughts when he turned on the radio, probably to break the exhausting silence between the two of us.
Alex that’s not the same thing,” I retorted. “Listen to the song.”
He sighed and reluctantly put his hand back on the steering wheel.
He was humoring me for once, being surprisingly compliant, but I knew that to be a vanishingly rare occurrence. He never usually let me win so easily.
After just a few moments, in fact, he snorted.
“Fine, change it,” I snapped. “Do whatever you want!” I raised my voice before putting my temple against the window again, trying to tamp down my irritation.
Neil had a special talent for frustrating me, and I didn’t know what to do about him anymore.
We were two bumper cars, just like the song said.
It was pointless for either of us to chase after the other; we always ended up smashed into millions of pieces.
“I’m on edge today,” he said, drawing my attention. He was trying to explain himself. I looked at him, so beautiful and tormented, and my heart seemed to vibrate in my chest.
Damn feelings!
“You’re always on edge,” I pointed out. It made me feel useless, knowing that my presence did nothing to improve his mood. Neil always seemed to make me happier, despite often also being intolerable. I had no idea how he did it.
“More so than usual today,” he specified. He pulled his package of Winstons out of his jacket and tugged a cigarette out with his teeth.
“Could you not…” I was all ready to ask him not to smoke in the car, but instead I just let it go with a shake of my head.
It wasn’t like he was going to listen to me anyway.
And, as if to confirm that thought, he lit the cigarette and took a long drag before cracking the window so he could blow out the smoke. I goggled at him.
Well, at least he’d learned to show the most basic consideration for a nonsmoker like me.
Since he’d explained that he was feeling edgy, I decided to change the subject to something lighter, like…
“Am I dressed okay for where we’re going?” I asked him and looked down thoughtfully at the sweater and skirt I’d put on to leave the house. I hadn’t brought much clothing from Detroit, and for whatever reason, I opted for the only outfit that wasn’t part of my plan to dazzle Neil.
“Yeah, you look nice,” Neil answered, his face completely unenthused.
“If you tell a woman she looks ‘nice,’ you might as well just liken her to hamster poop: small, neat, and not too smelly,” I said in an offended grumble, and he remained stone-faced.
In fact, he ignored me completely. “It’s an aggravating adjective,” I insisted.
And still, nothing. No reaction. So I thought back on Peter and Wendy, which I’d been reading for a while now and had yet to finish.
“Every time a child says, ‘I don’t believe in fairies,’ there is a fairy somewhere that falls down dead,” I quoted.
“By the same token, every time we describe something as ‘nice,’ something beautiful dies because we didn’t have the courage to make an actual judgment or say what we really think, often due to completely unfounded fears.
That’s a Neverland rule,” I explained, raising my index finger.
Neil just sighed.
“Spare me the wordplay. I think you look nice; that’s it,” he answered brusquely.
“Do you really understand what I’m talking about?” I asked, making a face. I didn’t think he did.
“Of course,” he said, his tone sardonic.
“Really?” I cocked a skeptical eyebrow.
“Yeah,” he answered, just to get me to shut up.
“Neil, stop humoring me,” I said irritably. I had figured out his little game.
“Okay.” He shrugged and went on smoking, completely indifferent.
“Oh my God! Quit it!” I exclaimed in exasperation, rubbing my forehead. Trying to talk to him was useless. Now he was agreeing with everything I said just to annoy me.
We fell silent, and the song continued to accompany us for a couple more minutes until Neil pulled up in front of a large building I didn’t recognize.
“Where are we?” I asked him.
“You’ll see.” With the cigarette clamped between his lips, he turned off the car and got out, gesturing for me to follow.
Once outside, I shivered in the cold air and retreated into my coat.
I shot a glance at Neil and saw that his right hand was shaking as he pulled the Winston, still only half-smoked, out of his mouth and flicked it onto the pavement.
He ground it out with his shoe and then turned his golden eyes on me.
From the dark expression that had fallen over his face, I knew he was about to tell me something I wouldn’t like to hear, and I mentally prepared myself to face whatever new obstacle he was about to put in front of me.
“This is a private psychiatric clinic operated by Krug Lively and John Keller. It’s the reason I asked you to meet me in New York,” he said coolly. I felt unsettled and wrinkled my forehead in confusion.
“And why are we here?” It might have seemed like a silly question, but I couldn’t figure out what he was trying to tell me.
“I pretty much grew up here. I was in behavioral therapy for twelve years,” he answered starkly, and I couldn’t hide my surprise. My head spun at the unexpected confession, and he must have seen it because the emotional distance between us seemed to grow.
“You…”