4. Not Like This
Not Like This
Iknow people are going to say I’m silly for thinking this (and maybe shameless as well), but hear me out, okay?
It’s a nice and lazy day, the kind that makes me feel extra warm and cozy in my layers of clothing.
Despite the chilly air—cold enough to make my nose sting a little—it’s still the kind of day you want to enjoy outdoors, and so we’re relaxing in our lounge chairs while waiting for either of our fishing rods to twitch.
The silence between us is calming, the kind that invites the occasional deep reflection, and that’s why…
Since we’re already fishing, why not take the chance to fish for something nice to hear as well, and that’s how I hear myself ask—
"Do you think there's any chance you'd ask me out if we didn't meet the way we did?"
I look at my husband expectantly, but Ruel’s gaze is on the snow-capped mountains across from us.
Oh no, you don’t.
So much has changed between us in the past eighteen months we’ve been together, living as husband and wife. Or maybe, it’s safer to say that he’s changed…me. To the point that I can’t even remember who I used to be before Ruel. I know I used to feel alone and scared most of the time, but now…
“Ahem.”
I clear my throat a few more times until Ruel finally looks at me.
“I miss it,” he says finally.
Riiiight.
He says he misses it, and I…don’t get it.
“Miss what?” I ask.
"The days you were still scared of me,” he says matter-of-factly, “and so you didn’t waste my time talking my head off—”
I choke back a laugh.
“Those days,” he murmurs, “were the good days.”
I make a face, and…I wish I could tell you that he knows how to smile now.
But I can’t.
He still doesn’t smile, but his dark eyes still do gleam in amusement, and more often, too. It’s one of the rare changes that I’d like to think the past eighteen months have wrought in him, and every time I see it…
Oh, how it makes my heart race, and my stomach flutter—
Huh?
Why is he getting up? Didn’t he promise we’d spend the whole day together?
“Is it your work? Are you—”
I’m momentarily distracted when he takes my rod as well and slots it into the rod holder beside his.
“Ruel? Are you going—”
Oh!
He’s swept me up in his arms in a blink, and the rest of my words die in my throat when I see the look on his beautiful face.
Gulp.
It’s a very familiar look, and it’s that look which has me all meek and unprotesting in his arms as he takes me to his cabin. My heart hammers against my chest as Ruel nudges the door open with his shoulder, and although this is far from the first time we’re together…
Ooooh.
I still feel shy and embarrassed when he captures my gaze as he starts undressing me. I still try looking away as he unbuttons my coat, and his dark eyes still gleam as he cups my chin to turn my face back to him.
The silence feels so loud between us as the coat slides off my shoulders and drops to the floor. I know it’s not possible, but I really feel he can hear how wildly my heart is beating against my chest, and by the time he pulls me close, and we’re skin to skin…
Aaaah.
His mouth covering mine still has my whole body burning in an instant, and all I can do is cling to him helplessly as the kiss deepens, and his hands start roaming my body. My back is on the bed, his touch gentle as he traces my lips, and then after that…
Oh, after that.
There are times when he’s not so gentle, times when he unleashes a side of him that’s just a little rougher and fiercer, just a little more possessive, and right now…
It’s one of those times, and all I can do is gasp his name out.
“Ruel!”
He takes me for a sensual ride that has me seeing stars, his every movement making my body tighten and writhe under his. And when I hear him grit my name out—
“Karyna.”
That’s always what starts me spiraling. The sound of my name on his lips when he’s just about to —
“Come with me.”
Say that.
My husband wants us to be together when we’re at our most vulnerable. He wants us to reach for the same stars. And every time he asks me that—
Yes, my love.
Yes.
Yes.
Those are the words I barely manage to keep myself from crying out every time I obey his command, and I’m coming with him and for him like he asks.
My love.
Because…that’s what he is.
The man I love.
I just haven’t told him yet.
* * *
My husband is an insatiably passionate man.
But I didn’t know that at the start, of course.
Actually, I didn’t know anything about men, period.
I’ve never even gone out on a date before I met him, much less kissed one.
My first kiss was the almost-tender brush of his lips against mine when an official married us in haste.
Everything I know about a man, I learned through him, from him, and…
for him. But that’s another story. My point is, all the knowledge I have of lovemaking is from Ruel, and that’s why…
I have no idea if this is normal.
This being how often Ruel reaches for me throughout the day.
This being how hungry Ruel seems for me, and how irresistible he makes me feel.
This being what makes me feel it’s so very possible that he’s in love with me, too.
I really want to believe that.
Especially since this also includes my husband not letting go even as the pleasure gradually fades, and I end up falling asleep in his arms.
So tell me.
Is this enough for me to think there’s a chance for our marriage to be real?
My heart wants to say yes.
My body wants the same thing.
But my mind, though…
My mind refuses to be swayed by emotions and sensations.
My mind wants me protected, not just pleasured, and that’s why…
* * *
I wake up the next day with the other side of the bed empty.
Sometimes, Ruel would let me know in advance if he has to leave for a job. Other times, when bad things happen in the middle of the night, I’d only know he’s gone when I wake up, and he’s not next to me.
I think it was on our third or fourth month together that I mustered the courage to ask him about what he does for a living.
He was obviously a man of means, since he owned—not chartered, mind you, but owned—a jet and a yacht, among other things we never talk about because he’s not that kind of man.
It’s just obvious, when a man’s so wealthy that they don’t even have to talk about it.
But what I really couldn’t tell at all was his job, and when I asked him about it, honestly—I was terrified he’d get mad.
I’ve never seen him mad; I just know instinctively it’s not what I’d want to see.
But when he did answer me, he was the opposite.
Not happy, but more like…clinical. Like he’s completely detached himself as he told me about how his father was this mob boss who hurt a lot of people, and when his father died, Ruel inherited a small fortune.
My father made sure it’s all clean, I remember him adding mockingly. The IRS did its best to take the money away, but they couldn’t. My father was very good at what he did.
He invested the money with a little advice from his friends (men who had the same dilemma he did, with unwanted blood ties to the mafia), and that’s how he came to be who he is now: someone who had enough money to rescue the people who had suffered at his father’s hands.
So more like an angel investor than a vigilante, but able to use guns when necessary?
I remember how my description back then had his lips curving into an almost-but-not-quite smile, and honestly…
That’s another thing that keeps me from saying those three words.
If this means something…
Then surely, I’d have gotten Ruel to smile by now.
* * *
My stomach keeps tying itself in knots for the rest of the day.
My gut tells me something bad’s about to happen, but that’s as far as it goes.
I find myself getting the first aid kit out, but I also find myself rehearsing all the protocols Ruel’s taught me, in case something bad happens when I’m alone on the yacht.
Something bad like, I don’t know, Konrad or my stepfather finding out where I am, and they want to abduct me again?
What if that does happen?
What if something happens to Ruel?
Or me?
And just like that, it becomes so painfully clear.
Life is too short for me to wait another day…when tomorrow is never guaranteed.
And so when he comes back, whenever that may be…
I’ll let him know.
Those three words.
I’ll tell him.
I love you.
I practice saying the words in my mind as I absently turn on the TV in the kitchen, and at first, I’m too busy testing the words out in different tones—
I love you when you’re being flirty.
I love you when you’re being shy.
I love you when you’re being earnest.
And that’s why, I didn’t realize it right away, what the news reporter is saying. It’s only when the TV shows faces on the screen—
Faces that have my own face losing color and the cup in my hand sliding to the polished floor, scalding-hot coffee sloshing over my hand, but I don’t even notice this because those faces…
Konrad.
Joel.
The faces that still give me nightmares and leave me screaming and sobbing on the inside when no one’s watching—
They’re on the TV.
But they’re dead.
It’s what the reporter’s talking about as the news shows footage of an abandoned school building in Moskra, its decrepit parking lot now ironically buzzing with life because of the shootout that took place the night before.
There are police cars and news vans everywhere, and blurred images of corpses being carried out.
Women who went missing over the years.
Women who were abducted but never found.
Auction house.
Sex slaves.
Human trafficking.
I can feel my brain automatically filing those words.
For later.
Because right now, my mind—
Diminished capacity.
The words from long ago pop out of nowhere. Ruel himself used them. Eighteen months ago. When he told me there’s still a chance for either my stepfather or Konrad himself to nullify our marriage.
And right now…
That’s how my brain is working.
With diminished capacity.
Because I’ve just realized that my reasons for staying married to Ruel…
It’s gone.
And so the chance to say those three words to him?
It’s gone, too.