Chapter 25 Selene #3
“I don’t think you do get it. I don’t think you can.” He stretched out an arm and tucked a bit of hair behind my ear. I wanted to dodge him, to shove his hand away and avoid his touch, but I couldn’t. His fingers brushed my soul and touched my heart, and I loved to feel them on me.
“What do I not get? That you’re with her now?
That you’ve been living with her for the last six months?
That, in those same six months, you’ve completely ghosted me, never answering a single call or text?
What am I failing to get, Neil? Because, to me, the conclusion is so obvious only a total idiot wouldn’t get it.
” A sob escaped my lips, and I finally found the inner strength required to push his hand away.
I scooted backward until I was plastered against the headboard, trying to escape his eyes.
“It’s not what it looks like…” Neil looked down at my hands and reached out to touch me again. He stroked my hands with his fingers, and the heat of him began to burn through every part of me again.
I could sense a bizarre need on his part to have some sort of physical contact with me. I knew it was the only way he knew how to communicate, but I wasn’t going to give in. The fire that he could stoke between my thighs wouldn’t be enough to distract me this time.
“Oh no? Then tell me you haven’t had sex with Megan or anyone else in these past few months.
Tell me that you’ve been thinking about nothing but me and that goddamned day in May because that is what I’ve thought about every moment since then and I am ruined.
I have been completely ruined by you!” My voice rose a couple octaves as I again pulled away from the touch of his hand.
The heat of his flesh was replaced by chill, and my head was pounding again.
I really had been ruined. I’d tried to forget him by kissing Ivan; I’d even tried to make love with him, but it hadn’t worked. I put a stop to it before we could even get started because, just as he was about to pull off my jeans, I realized that I didn’t really want him.
I only wanted Neil inside me.
Only him inside my soul.
“We’ve both had sex since then. We’ve moved on; it’s the right thing to do.
” His voice changed, becoming brittle and stern, a clear sign that I was right once again.
Something had happened between him and Megan, and he didn’t have the guts to admit it.
In fact, he thought I was just like him, that I would be just as thoughtless.
I almost laughed in his face.
“Both of us?” I sneered at him. “I’m not like you. I have never been like you. I couldn’t just replace you with a snap of my fingers. I haven’t been with anyone else, I haven’t…” I hesitated.
He was scowling at me. His eyes burned with undiluted rage that he seemed prepared to spew at me like a dragon.
“Seriously? I’d lay bets right now that you have a boyfriend and that boyfriend is your beloved captain of the basketball team.
You already admitted to me that you liked him.
Have you really not fucked him once in all these months?
” he asked sharply, giving me a look full of disdain.
“You can’t bullshit me with that little angel face, Selene.
You’ve finally figured out what I knew all along—that whatever you felt for me was an illusion.
So don’t try to lie to me!” He leaped to his feet, every muscle tensed beneath his clothes.
The loud, biting sound of his voice seemed to stab into my ears and pulsed in my head.
I automatically began to rub my temples, wincing in pain.
I was in no condition to sit through one of his outbursts.
Neil appeared to realize that he’d gone overboard and looked at me ashamed, like he wanted to apologize. But he didn’t.
“Look, I don’t want to fight with you.” He sighed miserably and sat back down on the bed, the springs whining underneath his weight. He shot me a guilty look, and I refused to meet his eyes because I knew that, if I did, I’d drown in those golden depths all over again.
“I didn’t sleep with Ivan. We just kissed, and that’s the truth.” I kept my eyes down, self-conscious about my confession. I couldn’t stuff down my feelings and pretend I didn’t still love him.
“I tried… I tried to go further with Ivan, but I couldn’t do it,” I went on, embarrassed.
I raised my head to check his reaction, and what I found was disconcerting: Neil was astonished.
His eyebrows were raised, his lips parted in surprise, and there was a strange gleam in his eyes.
I couldn’t be sure, but I strongly suspected that he was relieved that no one else had touched me the way that he had.
All at once, though, his expression shifted, and he turned inscrutable, retreating behind his wall of ice to keep me from seeing too deeply into him.
“It’s your life. Whatever you’ve done, you don’t have explain yourself to me.” He licked his lower lip, an unconscious gesture of anxiety, and lowered his eyes. For the first time, I didn’t believe a single word that was coming out of his mouth.
“You’d rather pretend you don’t care than admit your mistakes to yourself, wouldn’t you?
” I said provokingly. “You always believed my feelings were fake, and now that you see they weren’t, you don’t have the guts to come to terms with the choices you made.
You refuse to admit that you were the one who was in the wrong.
” I struggled to my feet, the muscles in my legs threatening to go out at any moment, but my single-minded determination gave me the strength to face him down.
“You refused to tell me about Chicago. You hid the truth from me. You told my mother you were going to leave me, and you made that decision without ever asking me. You never asked what I wanted; you didn’t even consider making an attempt at long-distance.
When you found out about your biological father, you cut everyone out of your life.
Even me, the person who had only ever supported you and stood beside you even when you humiliated me with other women, even when you trampled on whatever pride I had left, even when you pushed me out in the cold.
You made a new life for yourself while destroying mine.
I thought about you day and night, and while I was doing that, where were you, Neil?
In bed with Megan or other women? How many were there while I was grieving you?
While I was crying all the time and not being able to eat?
How many? And look at me, for God’s sake, Neil!
” My voice grew louder and louder as I spoke, and I felt powerful in a way I’d never felt before.
Finally, Neil lifted his eyes to look at me.
I froze when his stare landed on my lips.
“Is that what you think? That this was easy for me?” He jumped up, towering over me with all that dangerous power.
“You think I didn’t go to shit? The first few months, all I wanted to do was take the easy way out, and the only reason I am standing in front of you right now, safe and sound, is Megan.
She is the reason I survived, and I have no idea where the fuck I’d be without her.
I fucked other women to hurt myself the way I’ve always done.
And yes, I slept with Megan too, and I regret that bitterly.
So what are you going to do now? Judge me?
Tell me that I disgust you? I didn’t disgust you so much when you were underneath me having a great time!
” he yelled, close to my face. By then, I was no longer capable of reason, and so I simply slapped him full in the face.
I poured all my frustration into that slap, all my disillusionment and suffering, but also my love.
Insanely enough, there was love in my pain.
Neil kept perfectly still, not uttering a single word even as his cheek began to turn red. He looked at me, unhappy but not particularly surprised by my actions. He looked like he was trying to figure out whether I was serious or not.
“Get out,” I muttered. All at once, I was inundated with thoughts of other women touching him, and it made me nauseous.
I’d always suspected it, of course, but having it confirmed beyond a shadow of a doubt was infinitely worse.
My head spun. My brief moment of triumph gave way to the feverish exhaustion. I staggered back, fuzzy-headed.
“No,” he answered. “You haven’t even heard the best part yet.
” He moved closer, wrapping his arms around my waist for support.
Instinctively, I pressed my hands to his chest and my body trembled as I stroked his flexed muscles.
I looked up into those bright eyes that wouldn’t stop staring at my pallid face.
“I thought about you every time.” He leaned down to get his lips close to my ear, and his stubbly jaw grazed my cheek.
The proximity made me flash back to when I was his and he was mine and nothing else existed for us.
“I would think about you to get myself hard. I’d imagine your coconut scent, your soft skin, your ocean eyes, your button nose, and your perfect mouth to push myself over the edge, but I couldn’t orgasm with any of them, except for Megan.
I always picked brunettes with blue eyes, and they always looked so much like you at night, but in the morning, they were completely different,” he whispered, tightening his arms around me until it was hard to breathe.
He lifted one hand to stroke my hair, and I held my breath.
I was trapped in his strong arms, lost in his words.
“I became a director who only made the same movie over and over again. The same plot but different actresses…similar to you, but never actually you. And maybe I do disgust you now. You’d have every reason to feel that way.
But at least I’ve told you the truth; the whole truth,” he concluded.