Chapter 30 Gwen
GWEN
It wasn’t fair to compare Sebastian to Troy. I wasn’t trying to. But everything about this interaction was so different than anything I’d ever experienced.
Troy and Ryan were the only men I’d experienced.
One of them didn’t understand what the words “no” meant.
The other stopped wanting me this way shortly after I could legally buy a pack of cigarettes.
He’d only made advances after I found leaked photos of a teenage girl he’d gotten from some kid in his discord chat.
When I’d been infuriated and disgusted, when he thought I would leave, then he’d give me affection.
That sex was always passionate. Angry and sensual at once.
Up against the kitchen counter. In the shower as I washed away my smeared mascara, dodging the skin he’d cracked open when I told him I’d go to the cops.
Under the blankets first thing in the morning when I had lain awake all night, debating if I could survive on one income.
It’d been full of apologies. Excuses and rationalizations.
Rationalizations that, in those moments—when I’d been so emotionally deprived, so afraid of staying, just as afraid of leaving—I’d convinced myself were true.
The emotional torment paired with the physical pleasure had been a spell I couldn’t escape.
But this, sex with Sebastian, was intimate in a way I’d never felt. When he was unbuttoning my jeans, he looked up too quickly and head butted me square in the nose. Laughing, apologizing, he asked if I was okay, if I was sure I wanted to do this, and I kissed him in response.
Now wasn’t the time to think about Troy, but it was more than the simple things that were different.
The way he kissed. Troy’s tongue had always felt like a worm crawling into my mouth.
Sebastian kissed me deeply, hard, but never invasive.
It was like the clouds meeting the moon.
Like two things that belonged together touching briefly, then sliding freely to the next touch.
When Troy had trailed his hands down my body, when he held me in his arms, they were like iron locks. Sturdy and strong. Unbreakable. Even in the most intimate of moments, he held me so tightly I wasn’t sure if I could ever escape.
But Sebastian’s hands on my body felt like the water in a heated pool after a hike through the snow.
They were everywhere, cradling me, holding me.
But free-flowing. Soft yet powerful. As he peeled off my layers, as his weight came down on me, I didn’t even for a second fear that I would never be able to leave.
That if I did change my mind, if I didn’t want this, I would be stuck beneath him.
People always said that comparison is the thief of joy. In this moment, comparison was salvation.
It didn’t have to be the way it had always been. With Sebastian, intimacy, sexuality, wasn’t a bargaining tool. It wasn’t a manipulation tactic. It wasn’t a lock, or a rope, or, worse yet, a noose.
This was something cosmic. Something I’d read about in books, something I heard other women talk about, but I’d never realized existed in the flesh.
Once the clothes were gone, and the heat of his bare chest radiated into mine, it all dulled.
The memory of Troy’s hands where Sebastian’s were now. The sickness in my stomach at the thought. That sensation of being locked in chains.
It was gone.
Right now, there was heat, and there was touch, and there was pleasure, and there was safety.
Those were the only words I could use to describe these feelings, and yet, they didn’t even come close to what I felt in this moment.
I’d felt heat, I’d been touched, and I knew pleasure, but not like this. Not with him.
With him, everything else vanished. Even our bodies. My eyes were closed, his lips on mine, and at one moment, my knees were in the blankets, legs spread around him, and then cotton sheets cradled my back, and then it all vanished.
Was there flesh at all here? Had I died and made it to the afterlife? Was this heaven?
Because I felt all of this. All of him. The smoothness of his skin, the definition of his muscles.
Each of his gravelly groans that floated into my ears or from his open mouth to mine.
The salt of his sweat popped on my tongue.
That citrusy smell of his cologne mixing with his natural musk filled my lungs.
Every rock of his hips, every wondrous place he massaged within me, every grasp of his calloused fingers.
I felt all of it, and I knew each individual sensation. But when they all came together, I couldn’t tell where I ended and he began.
We were one within two. Our skin, our flesh, were two streams that opened into the same ocean. For a moment, only a brief moment, that thought had my heart falling and my stomach spinning.
Reality. I needed a tether to reality.
But when my eyes opened, our foreheads were pressed together.
His fingers threaded through my hair. He held on to the back of my neck, lips parting to meet mine.
The second they did, that falling sensation stopped.
Now, the spinning was around me. Rather than nausea, it was the touch of intoxication after a few drinks.
A blissful buzz that left all my limbs tingling, heat blossoming at every point where our bodies met.
Those hazel eyes. Only the thinnest rim of brown around the pupil, brightened by the deepest shade of verdant. A pale blue ring encased it all.
Until now, my favorite color had always been red. Not anymore. That thin rim of brown stretching into emerald with a smoky blue edge. That was, and would be from now until forever, the most beautiful collage I’d ever beheld.
They were a portal to another dimension.
That cosmic one where our bodies, our spirits, our souls, merged down those free-flowing rivers into an ocean that could never separate us.
No matter how hard we tried, bits of him and pieces of me were within one another now, and no schism, no rift, could pull us apart.
One of his hands traveled down my bare back. The other came for my cheek. He held it closely, softly. Like I would break if he wasn’t careful. Like I was the most wondrous thing he’d ever had the pleasure of embracing, and he had to handle me like the finest work of art.
“I don’t know how I ever lived without you, Gwen Kane.”
My name. The name I had chosen. The name that gave me power and a sense of self when I’d had nothing but a garbage bag full of things I’d managed to throw together as I ran in the night.
My name, on his lips, in his voice, brought that blissful buzz to a deep trembling vibration.
It took hold of each limb, each finger and toe, every drop of blood in my body.
I couldn’t even form words. All I could manage was to hold him closer, to wrap my arms tighter around his shoulders, to take in all those bits and pieces of him again.
The smoothness of his skin, the salt on my tongue, the scent of him in my lungs.
It was beauty and passion and love and safety in a way I had never felt, and I never wanted to leave. I wanted this to last forever. I wanted to stay in this moment for the rest of my life.
Between heavy breaths, sweat dampening my shoulder, he whispered in my ear, “But I never want to again.”
Tingling all over, still enraptured in the heat of this moment, my head collapsed to his shoulder.
His arms coiled around my waist, my legs doing the same to his.
A quiet laugh escaped me. Another trembled his chest. His lips came to my cheek, then my hair, and together, we sank into the soft linen below.
It felt like I was high. Maybe drunk.
Simple euphoria. The euphoria anyone felt when lying skin to skin with someone they loved. Simple, I called it, but how complex it felt when so much time had passed since having last experienced it.
Then again, I’d never experienced anything quite like this before.
Resting my head on his chest, I glanced around at the curtains, the canopy on the bed, then the intricate woodwork of the frame. “You really don’t like this stuff?”
“Hmm?”
I propped my chin on his chest, stroking my fingertips through the hair atop it. “The decor in here. You don’t like it at all?”
“Honestly, I don’t think I’ve given it much thought.” Sebastian pushed some hair behind my ear. “In college, all my stuff was from IKEA.”
“All my stuff at my old house was from IKEA,” I said, “but only because I couldn’t afford anything better. You could. When you got the inheritance, you could’ve spent a little bit of it to get furniture you like.”
“I guess I’m just not that materialistic a person. The money was better spent elsewhere. This place had everything I needed, so it was fine.”
“Well, aren’t you just the stoic.”
Chuckling, he thumbed a bit of lipstick from the corner of my mouth. “Is this your way of saying you like all this?”
“Practically, no,” I said. “It’s pretentious and vain to spend this kind of money on furniture. The most responsible decision would be to sell it off and donate the money.”
“But if you weren’t being practical?”
“Oh my God, I love it.” He laughed, and I joined in. “The trim work alone. And the fact that it’s all in such great condition. Now, don’t get me wrong, I don’t like the yellowish cream color of the wallpaper, but the furniture? It’s like a dark academia Pinterest board.”
“If it would fit in your cabin, I would give it to you.” He pecked my forehead and sat up. “I need a drink. Do you want anything? A snack, maybe?”
“I could eat.” Draping the sheet around me as I joined him upright, I gave a smile. “Whatever you’re getting’s fine. Thanks.”
“Anything for you.” He came back in for another kiss, smiling still when he tugged away.
Once he pulled on his sweats and headed for the door, I found myself smiling at the back end of it.
I hadn’t forgotten how this night started out. But for a while, it was nice to focus on something else. It was nice to fall into a life that didn’t feel like my own.
This was all I’d wanted since I was a little girl. It was how I’d wound up with my ex. It was all Delilah had wanted, too, and how she’d wound up with hers. The same could be said for Simone. All any of us wanted was to love and be loved by someone.
But each of us had almost identical stories. We’d each thought we had found someone who was kind, caring, to share our life with, to be our partner through the ups and downs. Only for them to ruin it with infidelity or abuse. They’d tainted each of us with their chaos and control.
My stomach sunk at the realization that if something went wrong here, it would be because of my own chaos. Because someone would find out what I had done.
The timing may have seemed silly. For the past few minutes, maybe the last hour, I had been relishing in pure, unadulterated bliss. Now, I was reaching into my purse, scrambling to find the burner phone.
Gwen; Are you sure no one will find it?
I stared at the text for a moment.
Ding!
My heart sank, eyebrows furrowing in confusion.
No. No, that couldn’t be right.
I copy and pasted the text I had just sent and clicked send.
Ding!
No. No, no, no.
With shaking fingers, I clicked the contact at the top of the text message. I pressed the green button. On the far left of the room, in a small mahogany dresser, a phone rang.
Sheet still wrapped around my chest, I stepped from the bed with legs of gelatin.
It was like lead weights were strapped to them, making it damn near impossible to clear the distance between me and that dresser at any reasonable speed.
This couldn’t be real. It couldn’t be.
This had to be a dream. That would explain why I went from so sad earlier, so heartbroken at the loss of my friend, to so euphoric now. Dreams always worked like that.
As I opened the drawer, I said that to myself again. This had to be a dream.
Beside the ringing flip phone was a small handgun.
I grabbed the phone.
The burner phone number lit up the screen, still ringing in my other hand.
I ended the call.
Missed call from You Know Who lit up the screen.
New text from You Know Who.
You Know Who; Are you sure no one will find the body?
When I scrolled up in the text, they were all familiar. The exact conversations we had had in the past.
It was Sebastian. Sebastian had found the body.
“I wasn’t sure if you were being mindful of your caffeine or not, so I got ginger ale and Pepsi,” he said, voice somewhere down the hall.
I whirled to face the door. Sebastian was just outside, voice as calm and nonchalant as ever. Struggling with a tray of food, he hadn’t so much as looked my way yet. “I wasn’t sure if you would want sweet or savory either, so I got—”
“It’s you.”
He looked up. Mouth falling open, his eyes flicked between the phone in my hand.
And the gun in the other.
“Shit,” he murmured.