Chapter 55
Fifty-Five
I sat on the balcony, the gentle sound of the ocean far below me lulling me into a false sense of security. It told me I could relax, but how could I relax when there was a bomb sitting right in front of me?
The heat that was almost suffocating by day, tonight I found comforting, like a firm hug holding me up.
But maybe that was a lie too. The ocean, the air, they were Alfie Tell’s kisses, Alfie Tell’s promises, Alfie Tell’s lies and right in front of me was the evidence of the worst thing he’d ever done to me.
My phone rested on the table, the drive link bright on the screen waiting for me to open it.
I felt like Pandora, my phone was a box containing all the world's evils and if I opened it the contents would cut me wide open, leaving me bleeding forever. But if I didn’t I’d be stuck in an empty limbo just like Alfie had been for the last twelve years.
I heard the ding of the lift doors opening. I felt his eyes on me, but instead of leaving me be as he had all week, he approached, footsteps clipped on the cool tile. I didn’t know footsteps could be angry but Alfie’s certainly were.
I didn’t turn, like a moody teenager I waited for him to round the table before meeting his pissed off gaze. “What have I done now?”
He opened his mouth to speak and I mentally prepared myself for whatever shit was about to come next but instead he hesitated, studying my face. “What’s wrong?”
I didn’t bother trying to hide it from him. I pushed my phone in his direction and he glanced at it. “You’re ready to look at the photos?”
“Oh sure, that’s why I’m sitting here contemplating throwing my phone in the ocean.”
Alfie released a tense laugh as he pulled out a chair and sank into it with the grace of a Greek god. “Come on, you know I wouldn’t let you get out of it that easily.”
His words were light but the threat behind them wasn’t. I’d put this out into the open now and I could feel Alfie’s razor sharp focus zeroing in on how he could get me to look at those images and face up to what he’d done.
“What’s up with you?” I asked him. “Why were you mad?”
“Angie quit.”
I wasn’t surprised, in fact I felt a twinge of pride. Good for Angie.
“You were angry with me for that?”
“I was. I’m presuming the idea didn’t get into her head on its own.” That was true but I didn’t need to admit it. “Now it doesn’t seem that important.”
I knew what he was trying to say. In the face of everything we were dealing with, Angie just didn’t matter so much anymore. Despite the roiling in my stomach, I was happy to hear him say it outloud. “It’s time for her to move on.”
“Yes, I suppose it is. It’s time for all of us to move on.” He gave me a meaningful look, one that said ‘get your shit together O’Connell and face what I’ve done so we can get over it.’ But he didn’t get it.
“Your monsters are old, Alfie. Mine are still brand new. I’ll do this in my own time.”
He nodded reluctantly. I knew this wasn’t what he wanted to hear. Alfie was a lot of things but patient wasn’t one of them. “Tell me what you’re afraid of.”
“I’m afraid it’ll be the final nail in the coffin.” I glanced up at him. “But I’m more afraid that I’ll forgive you.”
“Would forgiving me be so bad?”
“You tell me.” Are you a good man yet, Alfie Tell? That was my unspoken question. His brows knitted, his thoughts spinning so fast I could see the conflict in his eyes. He couldn’t answer me. “Are you afraid?”
“Yes. I’ve always been a very focused man. I know what I want and I pursue it until I get it. That’s true in all areas of my life and it's always been true of you…until now. Now, my focus is shaking, I’m uncertain of what I want.”
A sick feeling began to grow in the pit of my stomach. I’d never heard Alfie talk like this before. “Uncertain how?”
He released a frustrated breath, as if annoyed with his own inability to see clearly. He treated himself like he should be a machine, it pained me to see him angry with his own humanity.
“I look at my future and I see you plastered all over it but when I look at my present, you’re there but you aren’t clear to me.
Like I can’t quite touch you and I can’t stop thinking about touching you.
” He lifted his gaze to mine, a darkness there that sent shivers down my spine.
“I think about fucking you all the time.”
His words stole my breath away, the unabashed hunger with which he said them. “Alfie, stop.”
“No.” The denial was simple, no threat, just a powerful man objecting an order. “I lie in that bed, knowing you’re just two doors away and imagine slipping into your sheets and pushing inside you the way I used to. Sometimes, I think if I could just fuck you everything would make sense again.”
I could feel my skin heating with every word he spoke. My instincts screamed at me to run but I couldn’t make myself move.
“Do you remember that night you told me about Bradley? Those days and nights we spent in bed after…I don’t think we stopped touching for three nights straight. You broke my heart but just touching you healed everything.”
Those few days were the most intense of my life, I’d never been so lost in another person.
“You’re everywhere I look,” he continued, his eyes fixing on me with that razor sharp focus he claimed to have lost. “Every morning when I put on my cufflinks I remember the way you whimpered as I tightened them on your nipples. Even now, sitting out here, I remember watching you get off as you lay on that table on the balcony. I look at plastic sheeting and I see the dust on your cheek from fucking you at Harrington.”
My breath hitched, his words had stoked a fire deep inside me that I hadn’t allowed to blaze in two and a half years.
“So yes, I’m afraid. I’m afraid that despite everything I’ve done, if I made a move you’d let me fuck you.
I’m afraid that I’m not strong enough to control myself when I need to.
I’m afraid that if we fuck, you’ll go back to being that girl that let me manipulate her.
You’ve come so far but I think if you’re really honest, you know I’m still in your head. Aren’t I, baby?”
I wanted to deny it. I wanted to tell him he was wrong but I couldn’t. I had come so far, we both had, but I wasn’t sure it was far enough. He still had the power to play with me but I had one question.
“Isn’t that what you want? To be inside my head?” It gave him power and Alfie loved power.
His jaw ticked, his tell tale sign of frustration. “It used to be. I thought things were different now.”
“They are in a lot of ways.”
He nodded, his haunted gaze fixing on me. “Except one, you’re still all I think about.”
And that wasn’t okay, that was the reluctant truth he was trying to tell me. Alfie had spent so much of his life consumed by thoughts of others, he couldn’t let it happen again and neither could I.
He stood with none of the ease with which he’d sat, coming towards me was easy it seemed but leaving me, that he had to force his body to do. He pushed my phone towards me. “Bite the bullet, O’Connell, and jump.”
Hours later, I still hadn’t jumped. I’d paced, showered, picked at my dinner, sketched, watched TV and paced some more. But I hadn’t jumped.
I’d clicked on the drive link and entered the passwords and codes. I’d looked into my camera and had my face scanned for facial recognition. Now the worst of Alfie’s crimes was just one click away. Yet I couldn’t click.
I sat in my room, staring at the screen, waiting for the courage.
As always, the thing missing was Alfie. He was an ever present chasm in my chest and I ached with the effort of keeping him out. I didn’t want to do this alone and I didn’t have to.
Alfie deserved to explain himself and as much as I hated to admit it, I needed him. I needed his support and the courage he gave me.
Not giving myself time to second guess, I left my room and tiptoed down the hallway. I opened his door, not bothering to knock first. His room was dark and twice the size of mine. I could just make out his form, lying in bed, the sheet tossed across his lower body, leaving his torso bare.
My breath hitched at the sight. I felt everything he’d talked about earlier. The need. The want. The urge to slip between the sheets and let him sink inside me the way he used to. I wanted to feel how right the world felt when he touched me.
He must have felt my presence because he stirred, looking over at me. “Lo?”
“I…were you asleep?” I hesitated in the darkened doorway, wondering if he could see the way I pressed my thighs together.
“I wish.” He sat up, the sheet pooling around his hips. “What do you need?”
“You.” The word escaped me before I could stop it and I knew he heard the lust in my voice. I needed to get my head straight if we were going to do this. “I need you with me when I look at the photos.”
“Come here.”
Heart pounding, I went to him. He took my phone and got a remote from the drawer in his bedside table.
He pressed a button and I jumped as a glass screen descended from the ceiling at the end of the bed.
It flickered to life and after messing around with my phone, my screen appeared on the television.
I stiffened as his hand slid into mine. “What are you doing?” I tried to pull my hand away but he just tightened his grip.
“I’m going to hold onto you while we look at every single picture and when it’s done, I’ll let you go.”
Suddenly the reality of this hit me like a wave. Was I really ready to face every image, every lie? What if those photos tormented me forever? What if?—
“Look at me.” He cupped my cheek, forcing me to find his gaze in the dark. “It's going to be alright.” Somehow, despite all of his deceptions, I believed him.
I allowed him to pull me into his arms until I lay between his legs, his chest warm against my back. His arms folded around me, cocooning me tight, yet it didn’t feel claustrophobic. It felt right and just like that, my anxiety softened just a little.