Chapter 25
Liam
“Feel better?” I ask, my chest growing tight as she smiles up at me and nods. “Finish your shower and I'll work on lunch,” I say as I turn the water off on my showerhead. I don't take my eyes off her as I step out of the shower and grab my towel.
It’s not that I feel like I still need to watch her, like I have to keep an eye on her.
I no longer feel the need to wonder if she's going to try to escape or if she's going to hurt me.
Maybe it's stupid, but things have shifted.
Her eyes no longer dart to the front door when she's out of the bedroom.
I no longer get that feeling from her that she's going to try to leave.
Some days I let myself imagine that she's happy here with me, that this is exactly where she wants to be.
I let myself dream that this is where she would choose to be if the situation was different.
I know I’m delusional. I know she's probably still biding her time, waiting for just the right moment to get away from me. But she's also not miserable. The smile she gives me now is no longer placating and fake. Her laughter is new and has quickly become my most favorite thing.
Time doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if it's daytime or nighttime. The outside world has completely fallen away for me. It's only me and her spending time together. And that ache I have for her has only grown stronger.
We still don't touch. She still doesn’t reach for me in the middle of the night.
She keeps her distance and out of respect I do the same.
If she comes close, I back away. I don't know when that dynamic shifted.
I can't pinpoint the exact moment where I relinquished control and maybe it wasn't a single measurable point in time. Maybe it was slow and gradual.
I don't have to make threats. It doesn't stop me if she's not moving fast enough or if she gets that petulant look in her eyes that tells me she's going to argue.
Sometimes the words still slip out but instead of being angry and defiant, she just grins and does what I tell her to do, as if part of her needed me to issue the command.
I hate the rule I made in the beginning.
It haunts me now. It's a constant block between the two of us.
I was angry at her for the longest time because of how fake she was.
Because she wouldn't allow herself to be who she truly could be.
But now I'm the fake one. I'm the one not acting how I know I should be acting.
I shouldn't be obsessed with her. I shouldn't continue to lie asleep at night, listening to her breathe. I shouldn't be wishing for more. I shouldn’t wake up on the nights that I manage to get a little sleep with a smile on my face at the sounds of her snoring. There are a lot of shouldn’ts in my life right now but thinking I never should have taken her, isn't one of them.
I’m content right now but I'm not happy. I hate that there are no real conversations. I hate the silence constantly between us. I hate having things to say but being unsure of how they will be received. I hate that I think of her before I think of myself. I've never been this way before.
It's not all bad. The conversations we do have are simple. They're not heavy and weighed down the way conversations I've had in the past were.
She no longer acts shy about her body. She no longer lifts her head high in defiance.
Her fake it ‘til you make it moments are few and far between.
I don't know if it's habit or if it's what she needs when she climbs in the shower in the mornings and her hand runs between her thighs before she even touches the bodywash. Her orgasms don’t seem routine.
It's the times she pulls the dildo from the dresser and sets it up on the table herself that appeal to me the most. It's still its own form of torture and her taunting was right that first time.
I do imagine it's me that she's sliding down.
I do imagine that I'm the one inside of her.
To keep myself from taking what I want, I've convinced myself that it's only a matter of time and that she's also wishing it was me.
But neither one of us has caved. I took her but I can't take that, and she’s not to the point of asking for things to change just yet.
I’m biding my time with the hopes that eventually she will.
That she will slide that hot, juicy cunt off of that black dildo and crawl up the bed and slide down on top of me.
My only worry is that they'll find her before I can.
There are times just the pounding of her feet on the treadmill echoing through the house gets me hotter than I've ever been in my life.
But then again, everything about her turns me on.
My appeal for her is endless. She can do the exact same thing every single day, and I'm still in awe of how amazingly sexy she is.
I can’t count how many times I’ve waited on the bed for her, with that dildo suction cupped to the table, waiting for her.
I groan as I run my hand over my head, making my way into the kitchen.
That's what happened this morning. I waited for her to finish her run.
She didn't hesitate for a second when she walked inside with her skin glistening from sweat.
She watched me with a devious smile on her face and she straddled the toy and got to work.
Once again, I came without touching myself, like I always do.
I discovered it leaves me wanting more, but not always in a sexual way.
Sometimes I can't fight back those urges.
Sometimes I stroke myself off in the shower, painting her with my cum.
But I also wish she'd open up and tell me about her life.
I'd like to know what her childhood was like.
I wonder if it's different from the way I've pictured it in my own mind.
I don't ask because I don't want to reciprocate.
I’ve never felt shame about my past, my history, and the childhood I suffered from until her.
Before it was a badge of honor, the things that I had survived.
I have no doubt telling her about the real me would make her sad.
It would make her pity me. I need a lot of things from Raya Reed, but compassion isn't one of them.
Lunch is going to be simple today. Turkey sandwiches, her favorite kind of chips.
I toast the bread of her sandwich because she mentioned liking crispy bread at one point.
“Goddammit,” I grumble, dropping the hot bread to the plate, the tips of my fingers a little sore from pulling it out of the toaster oven too soon.
My phone rings on the counter. Once again, it's Hollis calling.
I don't know why I pick up. I've ignored every single phone call since that time I met him and Nash on the beach.
I open my mouth to tell him to fuck off, to quit acting like a sorority sister who needs advice, but then Raya walks in fully nude, her skin still wet in spots she didn't reach with her towel while drying off.
My mouth waters to lick those droplets from her skin.
She asked for clothes a while back and as much as the thought of her covering her body annoyed me, I laid out a t-shirt and a pair of sweats one day while she was in the shower.
That's where they've sat since. I don't think she wanted the clothes. It was clear she was just trying to determine whether I’d provide them or not.
“I can’t fucking talk right now,” I growl into the phone, my eyes never leaving Raya.
She looks at me, her head shaking, and she mouths, it's fine.
I don't know why I stay on the phone with him, but a lot of it has to do with the fact that she distracts me anytime we're in the same room.
Hell, she distracts me when she's in the other room.
Raya Reed is nothing but a distraction and I find myself enjoying not focusing on anything but her.
“What's got you so fucking busy that you've been avoiding my calls?” Hollis snaps as if he has any right to confront me. As if he's some jealous boyfriend wanting to know my whereabouts and what I'm doing.
“You sound like a needy bitch,” I grumble as I move to the fridge to grab the mayo. “I’m building a deck. I don't have time for your shit,” I lie.
“I can help build a deck,” Hollis offers.
Hollis is still working under the assumption that we live close by.
That my house is just a short car ride from the beach we met on.
I know that's where Hollis lives. Neither he nor Nash are as secretive about their lives.
But they do what they do for fun, for the thrill of it.
They haven't suffered things like I have.
They don't have that insistent need to be alone because alone is safe.
“I don't need some gimp-ass bitch slowing me down,” I say.
“I’m not a gimp anymore,” Hollis says. “The cast is already off.”
I take a step back when Raya reaches for the mayo in my hand.
We're always keeping that distance between the two of us.
I watch as she makes our sandwiches, grinning at how awkward her actions and movements are.
She may not have been put in the position to make her own meals before, but she's never been unwilling to help.
“You took your own fucking cast off?”
“No, the doctor took it off,” Hollis explains. “I was completely healed.”
“You must have superpowers then. You still had three weeks last time I saw you like ten days ago.”
“Ten days?” Hollis says. “You fucking idiot. It’s been three and a half weeks since we were at the beach. Have you been high this entire time or something?”
Floored that it's actually been that long all I can manage is a nod. High… that's a good way to explain it. I know I've ordered groceries several times, more often than I normally would, but I just chalk that up to Raya being here and eating more food. Three and a half weeks?
“Listen, asshole, I'm busy,” I say, getting ready to hang up the phone.
“And I'm fucking calling because, for some reason, Angel can't find you.”
“Angel isn't looking for me,” I argue. The man doesn't need me or him or Nash.
“Check your email, you dumbass.” That motherfucker has the nerve to hang up on me.
“A friend of yours?” Raya asks as a piece of turkey dangles between her fingers. I don't answer her as she finishes the sandwich. She turns to face me, questions in her eyes at the silence.
“You didn't yell for help,” I realize out loud.
Her brow furrows. “And risk someone as deranged as you, knowing I'm here?” She gives me a look that says she thinks I'm an idiot before lifting the butter knife to her mouth to lick the mustard off of it.
She tosses it in the sink. The metal making a clanking sound simply because she knows it annoys the shit out of me.
I don't say a word as she holds up a plate in front of me.
On it is possibly the ugliest fucking sandwich I've ever seen in my life.
But I also realize the importance of it.
She made me food without being prompted and this may be the first thing she's ever given me besides too many orgasms to count.
And all of those are offered without touching.
She put her hands on this sandwich. I can't convince myself that it was made with love, but it has to mean something, right? I ignore the dirty dishes in the sink as she grabs her own plate and walks toward the bedroom.
I press play on the remote after we settle on the bed. The sound is low, unintrusive as we begin to eat, but what Hollis told me nags at me. “You've been here nearly a month,” I say, wondering if she’s lost track of time as easily as I have.
“Twenty-seven days,” she says, taking a bite of her sandwich and not pulling her eyes from the television.
My world stops. She knows exactly how long she’s been here? “How do you know that?” I ask.
She looks over at me as if it’s a silly question.
“Today is the thirtieth. You took me on the third. But I’m not counting that day because it was close to midnight.
” I just blink at her. “The date is on your phone screen,” she explains.
“I saw it yesterday when you placed the grocery order.” As if it’s no big deal, she gives me a small little smile before reaching over and stealing the pickle off my plate.