16. Chloe
Chloe
Isqueeze my duvet around my shoulders, resistant to waking fully.
The metronome of pain that has been beating steadily in my brain for far too long has slowed to a dull ache, closely matching the timing of a lighthouse spinning between land and sea.
In and out of focus. Gone, then back again.
The curtains are drawn in front of the closed shutters; but it wouldn’t matter, anyway, because there’s not a shred of light bleeding into the room.
A soft knock sounds from downstairs, and a moment later, the door opens. It takes me a moment to realize someone let the visitor into my house.
“She’s still out,” Colin says, his voice tense.
There’s a woman’s voice, gentle but insistent. “We have to take her statement, Colin.” The sound of heels clicking across the marble floors echoes up the stairs, then the soft thud of footsteps on the staircase.
I open my eyes to my bedroom door as the crack expands, bleeding light from the hallway into the room. I shield my eyes with my hand, rolling onto my back.
“Sorry,” Colin mumbles, clicking the door closed behind him and crossing the room to my side. I roll over to face him. He stands next to the edge of the bed, his fingers twitching at his side like he wants to reach out and touch me, but he doesn’t.
I wind my fingers into his. I can tell he tries to keep himself from returning my grip, but he can’t.
He’s the only thing that makes sense in this moment where the last forty-eight hours of my life feels like a blur, and I want to hold onto that.
“Where you been, panda bear?” I murmur, stroking my thumb against his hand. The rough feel under my fingers draws my attention down. His knuckles are red, cuts littering his skin. They look swollen, tender, but he doesn’t wince or draw his hand away.
“Here,” he says quietly, lowering himself to sitting on the edge of the mattress and angling his body toward me.
“Why?” Tell me why you care so much. Tell me you care about me.
His face is shaded in the darkness of the room, a sliver of moonlight from somewhere outside the window cutting into the space and glinting off the green swirl of his irises as he studies me quietly, not answering.
I unwind my fingers and move his hand to my face, cupping his palm to my cheek and letting my eyes flutter closed again. The feel of his skin on mine drives electricity through my limbs, zipping from where his thumb rests against the edge of my mouth into a flurry of energy low in my belly.
He’s been afraid to touch me since our visit to Hope House. I’d seen it in the way he hesitated to force me into his truck, his features flashing with something that looked like a combination of shame and uncertainty.
But I want his skin on mine, he has to know that. I’ve never shied away from his touch whether it be veiled tenderness or loudly savage. I want all of him, just like I need him to want all of me.
Colin’s thumb traces a slow path across my parted lips, his hand light on my face, careful of the sensitive flesh under his palm.
Each movement of his finger across my mouth sparks that charge to life, my thighs clenching around the idea that we’re finally fucking getting somewhere.
Even if I did have to get drugged and punched in the face for it.
I open my eyes to watch him study my lips like I’m a science experiment he’s getting ready to watch explode; his gaze intently focused on the trail his thumb is blazing, like he’s memorizing the route in case he needs to take it again.
“Do you ever think about kissing me?” I blurt quietly.
“Yes.” His response comes without a second thought.
He doesn’t flinch or seem caught off guard, like that’s all he’d been thinking about, like he’s been waiting for me to ask the question.
But then he’s pulling his hand back to his side, clearing his throat, and the warmth of him is slipping out from under my skin, leaving a lonely chill in its place.
“One of my co-workers is here,” he says. “They need you to give a statement about what happened. At the party, and then…” he trails off, his jaw stiffening. “If you don’t feel up to it—”
“It’s fine. I’ve given plenty of statements.”
A breath of laughter leaves his lips. He’s familiar with my statements. He’s the one who took mine when the ME completed the autopsy on Husband Number Three and flagged his death as suspicious.
“What’s so suspicious about an accidental overdose?” I asked him, in defense mode to protect my mother.
His finger tapped on the metal table, a steady, repetitive sound that said more than he ever did at the time.
My eyes were drawn to the soft pound of his finger hitting the table.
It was a menacing sound. A loaded sound filled with the promise of justice.
But his eyes, though steely, couldn’t quite hide the flicker of intrigue as he tried to figure me out from the other side of the cold surface separating us.
Eventually he’d come to say a lot more. Do a lot more.
Every word and action another lie to himself, that he was only obsessed because he was following a lead.
Colin knew I was guilty of something the moment I sat down in that interview room. He may have thought my mother was the ringleader, but he thought I was her trusty sidekick. And there was a part of him that didn’t care. I could see it in his eyes.
And I’d seen that look in someone else’s eyes before, too.
He wanted to protect us. To protect me. Because he knew the men who died were evil, and they deserved what they got on their judgment days. But he couldn’t admit it, because he was supposed to be a man of the law.
The sound of knuckles raps softly against my bedroom door, forcing Colin off the bed in a rush as he crosses the room and presses his hand to the closed door to keep the person on the other side from opening it. “Jesus, Lucy. We’ll be down in a second.”
He’s protective of me. Of my space. Who the fuck is Lucy?
Colin lingers by the door until the footsteps recede on the other side, disappearing down the staircase again.
I lift my heavy limbs from the bed, leaning over the edge and steadying myself with deep breaths until my head stops spinning.
“Would you do me a favor?” I whisper into the darkness.
He doesn’t respond, but he’s already moving back in my direction, coming to stand in front of me.
Glancing up at him, I reach for his hand again, afraid that if I don’t tether him to me right now, he’ll run.
“Would you just do it? Would you drop this pretense for a second and just kiss me?”
Without hesitation, he lifts his palm to the side of my face. The touch feels so fucking gentle and restrained at the same time, I want to implode. His thumb, that fucking thumb of his that I want to suck into my mouth and bite, trails across my lip line. And God, I just want him to—
“Maybe you hate me. That’s fine, Colin. But you just said you’ve thought about it. You know I’ve thought about it. Don’t make me ask you ag—”
He’s bending forward and his lips are moving toward mine before I can get another breath out, and they’re there.
Sweet like candy and subtle like the fluff of a dandelion, his lips exploring what it feels like to be mine.
And then bruising, as he weaves his hand into my hair, gripping the back of my head.
Claiming, as his tongue slips past the seam of my lips and I grant him full access, sealing my lips around his and winding my arms around his neck as he keeps our bodies suspended above the bed with his hands on either side of my face.
It’s everything I thought it would be and nothing like I expected.
It’s the coolest water on the hottest day of summer.
The brightest fire burning against the clearest sky on the coldest day of the year.
It flames to life in my fingertips. My chest. It burns up every strand of hair on my head as his body leans into mine, and I feel every single point of connection where his body touches mine.
And then he pulls away, groaning against my lips and pressing his forehead to mine.
“Fuck, Chloe. That was…” He forces a breath out of his nose, the sound desperate and wound up. “A horrible idea.”
“No it wasn’t,” I argue.
He leans back a bit, his gaze bouncing between my eyes. “With Lucy here? Fuck, I don’t want to stop, Chloe.” His hands move on either side of my face, gently brushing the hair back, the movement so tender I could cry.
My eyes fall closed. I want to stay here forever.
Behind this layer of fog where everything is so clear.
Where he’s honest, and open, and mine. But the timing was intentional.
He needed to feel like he had an escape, or he wouldn’t have trusted himself to do it.
But I needed to take us there. Closer to the point of no return.
With one last gentle kiss to his perfect lips, I shift away from him.
“I’ll meet you down there,” I tell him, and he nods, scrubbing a hand over his mouth before reluctantly retreating toward the door before he disappears through it.
The cold air prickling my skin is a painful reminder of his absence, and the marble floors in the bathroom don’t help. The first thing I do is slide my feet into my slippers by the sink before facing my reflection in the mirror.
I press the pads of my fingers to the tender, red splotch blooming across my cheekbone. I press harder, resisting the wince that threatens to build in my throat and watching the skin under my fingertips turn from red to white under the pressure.
Motherfucker.
I’m this close to earning Colin’s trust, and this loser and his friends are going to ruin everything.
My fingers continue toward my mouth, ghosting over my lips, tracing where Colin’s had been and the path the fire had taken as it zipped through us.