Chapter 21 Selene #3
“Don’t worry about it. I like spending time with you,” he answered easily.
His voice was so peaceful; it calmed my nerves.
I smiled and made myself more comfortable on the couch, turning my attention to the plasma screen in front of us where there was a documentary about big cats that Ivan seemed to be really into.
“Did you know that lions have barbed penises?” he asked seriously. I shot him a look and found him focused on the screen, apparently rapt.
“I did know that, yes. But I always wondered if that posed any sort of risk to the lionesses. What do you think?” I almost laughed at the absurdity of our discussion.
Ivan was funny and undoubtedly a handsome guy. He had his own kind of appeal, seductive and mysterious but never dangerous or dark, never wild or rough.
“Huh…I suppose it must not,” he said, his mouth contorting into a skeptical expression.
Then Ivan cleared his throat and situated himself on the couch; I turned away to avoid getting caught staring at him.
I drowned out those thoughts with memories of another man, the only man I loved.
I curled up tightly on the sofa, watching that big cat documentary until I began to relax.
I let my eyes—too heavy and exhausted by sleepless nights—close as I surrendered to the lure of sleep…
* * *
I opened my eyes slowly, as images from my dream swirled around in my head. A dream more real than I could possibly have imagined.
I dreamed that I’d decided to let Neil go. That I realized that love was not possession and it did not involve suffering. Love was freedom.
To set someone free is the greatest gift you can give the one you love.
It is the grandest demonstration of love, especially when it involves a great sacrifice.
I thought I heard his baritone whisper: “Wherever you roam, my Pearl, no matter how vast the ocean, you will always find your Shell again. Whenever you feel lonesome, I will be with you. Remember that.”
But I knew that was just another illusion conjured up by my spirit as it struggled to cope with his absence.
I sat up slowly, stretching out my arm muscles, and felt a warm hand touch my cheek and a thumb smear something wet from my skin.
“You were crying in your sleep,” Ivan said in a desolate whisper. He was crouched in front of me with a look of worry on his face.
I blinked rapidly and sat up all the way. I glanced around, disoriented. “What time is it? Did I…I fall asleep? Oh God. I’m sorry,” I winced. I didn’t tell him what my dream had been about. It hadn’t exactly been a nightmare, but, for all that, it had hurt like needles stabbing between my ribs.
Had I seriously been crying?
I didn’t know anything by that point; all I felt was a vast confusion swirling around in my head.
The truth was, I was afraid.
Afraid of Neil’s decisions.
Had he gone back to sleeping with random blond women all the time like he did before? I was afraid he’d fallen back into his old, bad habits. I was afraid that finding out about his biological father had destroyed him so thoroughly that he’d go back to harming himself.
“Selene… Hey… Are you okay?” Ivan stroked my hair.
I blinked, trying to push the pain down lest it tear me in two like a dagger to the gut.
My eyes found his, and I nodded, lying.
“It is nine o’clock, though. I chose to let you sleep. You needed it; you were exhausted.” He tucked a lock of hair behind my ear like a big brother looking after his sister.
I felt a terrible stab of pain in my chest.
“Ivan,” I cried out. He watched me attentively, waiting for me to speak.
“How do you forget someone who can make you hurt so much even from far away?” I said in a tortured whisper, thinking about how completely shattered my world was without Neil in it.
I had warned him: I’d told him that I would lose my mind if he wasn’t in my life, and I meant it, but he didn’t care.
He didn’t believe I was serious.
“You can’t. You just have to give it time until, eventually, your heart gets used to the absence,” he added, sounding devastated as he stroked my hair.
He balanced his elbows on his flexed thighs and continued watching me steadily.
Instinctively, I just kept talking.
“My mother told me that Neil was always going to leave my anyway. That he didn’t want to warp my life.
He didn’t want to drag me into his problems. He never thought he was the right man for me.
He didn’t want to become the center of my world; he didn’t want me to abandon my friends, my mother, or my college career.
He made the choice for the both of us. He didn’t even give me a chance to decide what was right for me, you know?
He was so selfish!” I exploded furiously.
More and more, I found myself flip-flopping between moments of despondency and moments when I really wanted to hate him. Sometimes, I even convinced myself I really did hate him, but then I always came back around to loving him even more somehow.
It was too much. Too draining, this thing I felt for him.
There was no explaining my love for Neil. Just like no one could explain why the shore continued to welcome the sea’s embrace when its wild flood always went away again and always took with it a few more grains of sand.
“He wasn’t being selfish. Selfish would have been forcing you to follow him. I can’t stand the guy, but I do believe he let you go because he was thinking of your happiness,” Ivan said thoughtfully, applying some logical reasoning to the peculiarities of that human disaster. He was probably right.
I just shrugged and let the conversation die until Ivan drew my attention back to him.
“Selene…” he said, looking deeply into my eyes. I knew he could see all the suffering there. “I think I know one good way to forget about your troubles. At least for tonight,” he said in a whisper, like there was someone else in the room with us who shouldn’t overhear.
I said nothing. Even worse, I did nothing as he leaned forward until I could feel his hot breath on my face.
I did not object when he cupped my cheek or nuzzled my nose with his.
I did not object when his soft lips settled over mine, feather-light, nor when he began to move them, urging me to share in the kiss.
To create this completely new and unexpected joining.
His hand moved from my cheek to the back of my neck, sliding into my hair as he thrust his tongue into my mouth.
We both leaped to our feet the moment his tongue met mine.
He flattened his other hand against my back, pressing our bodies closer together until they collided, heated but still a bit cautious.
“You did tell me I shouldn’t ask for permission,” he murmured against my mouth.
“Now you can say I’m very rude.” He smiled and then resumed kissing me with more longing, more intensity.
He tilted his head, pressing more deeply into me and stealing my breath away.
He tasted like mint, like something good and right, as he continued to delight me with his passion and sensuality.
“Ivan…” I babbled out his name, confused. I had no idea what I was doing. My brain seemed to have powered down. I rested my hands on his chest, and guilt bore down on my long-shattered heart.
I wanted to stop thinking about Neil. To do that, I would need to find someone who wasn’t like Neil, someone who was whole. Someone like I used to be. So why did it feel wrong to kiss Ivan but right to suffer for Neil?
Why did it feel wrong for me to accept another man’s interest but right for Neil to share another woman’s bed?
But, more importantly, was it right, what I was doing at that moment?
Was it going to make me happy?
I gasped when, in one wild movement, Ivan scooped me up into his arms without ever breaking the kiss.
My legs wrapped around his waist, and his hands tightened on my ass.
He carried me swiftly down the hallway and into the bedroom, shutting the door with a careless kick.
He laid me out slowly on the enormous bed and positioned himself on top of me, between my legs, balancing his weight on his elbows.
We were both breathing hard, our chests trembling, our bodies burning up.
But I didn’t want…didn’t want…
“Are you okay?” he asked, staring into my eyes. I could feel his erection between my legs, and it was neither surprising nor arousing.
No visceral desire bloomed inside me, no urge to be dominated, and no need to give him pleasure.
I stared at him in a daze.
I’d unintentionally messed up his hair, and his lips were wet from our kisses.
No, I was not okay. That was obvious from my vulnerable, irrational behavior.
The real Selene would not have acted on impulse like this.
And it was for that very reason that I did something I would come to regret, my biggest screw-up: I kissed him again.
His tongue tangled ardently with mine.
One hand moved from my waist to my ribs before fondling one breast and beginning to unbutton my shirt.
I kept my eyes closed. I let him do it, but I didn’t look.
I didn’t want to look.
I imagined that his fresh taste turned bitter and smoky, that his cologne was replaced with the odor of musk, and that his lean, athletic body was instead a powerful, virile one, heavy and sharp-edged.
I imagined him pressing down on me unsparingly like an overbearing god.
Just as Tinkerbell would have done, I spread my wings and flew far away.
But, then again, Peter Pan had taught me that only those with happy thoughts have the ability to fly.
I felt my body tense up with the pulsating need to have Neil inside me.
My stiffened nipples pressed against my bra, seeking his lush lips.
My cheeks were wet again. Another tear slid down my face and vanished into the sheets.
“You smell like coconut…” Ivan licked my neck and groped one breast that had been exposed by my now completely unbuttoned shirt.
And I recalled that day after our first night together. Neil sat on the couch with me, kissed me, and breathed in the scent of my skin.
“My bed smelled like coconut this morning,” he had told me. We both longed to relive that moment, starving for each other.
We were right there.
Just me and him.
A bowl of popcorn.
And that mess of ours, which was starting to take shape in my head.
And in my heart.
I smiled at the thought, lost in the past, lost in that insane film of us, which could be called anything but a love story.
Then I stroked along Ivan’s hoodie. I slid my hands underneath the fabric and felt his smooth, soft skin; the muscles there were tensed and defined.
I moved around to the front, glancing along his tight abs and finally reaching his hard pecs.
With my eyes still closed, the only thing I felt was his mouth coaxing mine to kiss him again and again until I was consumed. Until I consumed myself…