In immortal relationships, there is always suffering
19
Riftan heaved a sigh and plunked onto the couch, beckoning me over with, “I’m not very tired. Would you like to watch a movie with me, love?”
Jameson had only recently left, but my body already felt like lead. Though my weary bones disagreed with Riftan’s sentiment, I joined him on the couch.
His gaze followed as I plopped down into the open seat next to him, brows arching when I only offered silence. The blue stare didn’t falter, lingering in the corners of my vision after I looked away. Close behind was the stroke of his fingers, prodding me in all the places his eyes had trailed. First over my hair, and then under my chin, where he tugged until I faced him. The softness in his look matched the longing in his touch. Both that and his eager hands pulled me in until I sat side saddle in his lap.
Eyeing my bare shoulder, he padded his fingers along my chest where my shirt met my skin. “I like this sweater, it’s cute,” he offered.
“Oh, thanks.” I looked down to remind myself that I’d dressed in my trusty black knit sweater that night.
“You should wear it more often.” Riftan followed the statement by tracing back over the line that it made across my chest until the loose neckline dropped off my shoulder.
His contact had my eyes rolling back in my head, provoking the feverish tingly feeling only his touch could.
His voice was low, but closer now. “You have the most beautiful…” The warmth of his breath invigorated the skin on my neck and I flinched, surprise snapping me from my stupor. “Delicate…” His head tucked into my neck, the plush sensation of his lips on my collarbone freezing me stiff. “Shoulders,” he finished quietly, pecking a kiss on my neck and trailing it down my shoulder. At my arm, he pulled down on my sweater, exposing more skin and planting another kiss where it was once concealed. His lips paused there, his only movement the shallow breaths he huffed over my sensitive flesh.
In his grasp, breath eluded my lungs and thoughts slipped my mind; my heart was the only functioning part of me as it raced at an ungodly speed inside my ribcage. A startling pinch under Riftan’s lips kickstarted my functional processes. I gasped, following the outburst with an aggrieved, “Owe!” while pulling away from his bloody fangs.
He criticized through clenched teeth, “Why do you have to do this to me?”
“Me? You!” I barked, throwing a leg over his lap so I could straddle him in a position that would assert dominance. “Seriously, for one, you bit me. And more importantly, you keep doing things like this, and acting like it’s my fault! You’re the instigator, but you refuse the idea that we can be any sort of romantic, or intimate, or anything. You don’t make any sense. I don’t think you know what you want!”
His response was mellow. “You’re right. I don’t know what I want. But truthfully, that doesn’t matter. What I want is of no consequence when it comes to what is right.”
“And you think it’s so wrong for us to be together intimately? We are already so close, in so many different ways. What does it hurt to be physical, when emotionally we are already intimate? Can’t you open your heart to me the rest of the way? I promise I won’t get hurt regardless of what happens.” My chest constricted, a bodily reminder of how severely that was a lie.
I’d lie a thousand times more if it meant convincing him to give me a chance. I’d pretend he couldn’t break my fragile heart, though that was already an inescapable fate, regardless of what he decided. Admitting that hurt, but not as bad as it would to experience it firsthand. That’s why Jameson wanted me to take control and leave while I still had some remnant of an unbroken heart that didn’t completely belong to Riftan. But was that what Riftan wanted of me, too?
When he was silent, I let that thought weasel its way out of my pathetic lips. “Do you truly wish that I’d leave you?”
Instantly, his eyes flickered up to regard mine. “Of course not. Why would you think that?”
I tried not to let my voice drag into dejection. “Jameson told me the two of you talked about it. He tried to convince me to go home with him. He thought it’s what you’d prefer.”
Riftan winced. “No, no, love. Is that why you looked upset earlier?” A harrowed whine cut through his tone. “I swear I didn’t say anything of the sort. Admittedly, I did talk to Jameson, but I merely asked him to feel you out. I wanted him to ask you questions about how you were doing, not tell you that I wanted you to leave. And yes, repentantly, I wanted him to ask you how you’d feel if I wasn’t around, but it’s because I want to make sure that I’m doing what’s right for you, and not because I don’t want you here with me. I want you to live out all the lives I have given you the opportunity to live—even the ones that don’t involve me.”
His recollection was definitely closer to what Jameson had truly said, but in my mind, it meant the same thing. Heat flared in my veins, anger at his implication hot on my nerves. I hadn’t solidified my scowl when his hand was icing the feeling, clasping onto my cheek and bringing with it the comfort and affection I recognized in his touch.
I softened around him in a way I was afraid I couldn’t reharden again. Dominance and control, whether I’d meant to use them as leverage to finally communicate with him, were beginning to elude me as I sank into Riftan’s embrace. My voice escaped too soft to sound eminent, “And what if I don’t want any of those lives that don’t involve you?”
His solace vanished, hand slipping down by our side. “I think you should at least try it out before you make that kind of decision. You still think like a mortal. There is no point in being stuck with me from the very start of your long eternity.”
“That’s not fair Riftan, you can’t tell me to try something before I decide when you aren’t willing to do the same with me.”
“There’s a reason for it. You know that. I’m not willing to be someone who hurts you. In a strange sort of ironic twist, I care about you too much to see you suffer on my account. And in immortal relationships, there is always suffering. That is something you’ll simply have to take my word on.”
I had no response if I wanted to keep things civil. The welling emotions were hot under my skin and they wanted release—which would be unacceptable.
There was a long moment of silence between us, where I held his gaze, anchored to mine. I could imagine all kinds of things going on behind the opalescent pools of his eyes, but I had a feeling I never would guess exactly which one was accurate to what he was thinking. As it usually did, staring into those eyes only added to my bound-up frustrations—or in this case, maybe a combination of frustration with some sort of protracted grief.
As if he was seeing my emotions written upon my face, Riftan’s shoulders fell. His hands met my cheek once again, this time pulling me in until my forehead rested in the crook of his neck. There, with the distinct impression of his body against mine, the comforting and familiar smell of him could envelop me.
When he spoke again, the vibration of his vocal cords drummed against my ear, offering the contentedness his words tried—and failed—to duplicate. “I’m never going to stop insisting you harness your new life to its fullest, but don’t ever get that confused with me not wanting you around. You’re the greatest companion I’ve ever had, and I’ll never let you go, not fully. Like Jameson and I are good friends, you and I will always be close as well.”
Jameson’s visits weren’t nearly often enough to make that sentiment meaningful.
“You’re the worst.” I let the words slip past my lips, small and feeble enough that a mortal may not have heard me even as close as I was to his ear. But Riftan could hear me plain as day. I knew it for a fact. That made my heart ache harder. I didn’t mean it, but I wanted him to know how much I hated what he was putting me through.
His arms only tightened their embrace, holding our bodies together in unfathomable closeness. In a shallow breath that fluttered over my scalp, he finished, “I turned you so you would be free of men like Johnny, not so you’d be constrained to a new one like me.”
My heart was too weak to reply. Arguments with Riftan were a whole new level of draining. There was never a winner, only two sad saps who hated hurting each other’s feelings.