Chapter 20 #3
I get back in my car, fighting against the fog across my eyes. I don’t know where I’m going. I’m not thinking straight. My head is an ugly concoction of anger and desperation. I’m standing on a ledge and there’s no way back.
I have to fall.
I only realise I’ve driven to her when I’m sitting outside Dayna’s apartment block, staring at the door she slammed just hours ago.
She buzzes me in, and I head straight up to her apartment, a darkness settling over me, adding to how much I want to beat the shit out of something.
She answers the door, wearing a short black robe, her hair pulled across her shoulder, her skin clean and fresh. She’s mesmerising.
‘Hi,’ she whispers.
‘Hi.’
She reaches down and takes my hand. ‘What happened?’
‘I got in a fight with my reflection.’
Her eyebrows furrow, but she doesn’t press me. She’s seen me lose it once before, when a guy dared to lay a finger on her in a bar. I close my eyes and try not to picture her with another man when I’m gone.
I thought about what I was going to say as I trudged the stairwell up here, how I’m going to end this. Now, seeing her, I’ve forgotten everything.
She steps back from the door and holds it open.
‘I should go.’
‘You just got here.’
I stand motionless, my legs not carrying me either way.
‘What if I asked you to stay?’
I step inside, close the door and press her back against the wall, wrapping the ends of her hair around my fingers.
‘What happened today, Clark? Talk to me.’
I squeeze my eyes shut until they stop stinging.
‘I can’t. And I can’t be here. I’m too angry.’
‘Let me help you, Clark. Let me be what you need.’
I drop my forehead to hers. ‘I’m afraid to let you see me.’
Her touch against my cheek is soft, tender and so goddamned welcome. I’m going to miss it. God, I want to smack something. I want to beat the shit out of my father. Tear his face off. Beat him until he can’t walk or talk.
Dayna presses her lips to mine. It’s gentle, like the kind of man she wants me to be. A man I’m not.
I pull away, take one look into those wide brown eyes then crash my mouth against hers, yanking her hair and lifting her hips around my waist.
I carry her, walking her backwards into the lounge which is set up for a night in – wine, book, candles. It smells like her, sweet vanilla. The scent doesn’t soothe me; it breaks me.
‘I don’t want to hurt you,’ I tell her, grating the words through my teeth as I sit her down on the sofa.
She lifts my face to hers. ‘You won’t.’
I peel the silk from her chest, taking a nipple and biting down, too hard.
She only squirms, opening the belt of her robe and taking my hands to her breasts, her stomach, until I’m digging my fingertips into her thighs.
Unable to control everything I’m feeling.
Not able to think straight but knowing how much I need her.
I part her knees and crawl between them. She sits up, unbuttoning my shirt and doing exactly what I need her to do, biting down on my pec, hurting me, giving me what I deserve. Killing the anguish I feel right below the spot she’s digging her teeth into.
Bringing her hips towards me, I suck her clit, moving my tongue down, tasting her excitement, readying her. I don’t waste time, freeing myself from my jeans but not taking them off. I need her.
She parts her legs wider, and I thrust deep inside her with one drive, bottoming out, making her yell my name and dig her nails into the plump flesh of my arse.
I draw back. ‘I don’t want to hurt you,’ I tell her again, my voice rough, betraying my desperation.
‘You won’t,’ she says, pulling me into her.
God, I love her.
I pound into her relentlessly until her hips are gyrating uncontrollably, her head thrown back against the sofa. Fucking gorgeous.
She screams my name, her hands flying to her hair. Her insides squeeze my dick.
I flip her, bringing her knees to the floor.
She braces her hands on the sofa, and I grab her hair in my fist, lifting her head back.
I crash back inside her, over and fucking over, until I find my release.
The noise I cry out is some dark mix of hatred, love and disgust, as I fall onto her back and wrap my arms around her waist, holding her to me.
Close will never be close enough. In my mind, I tell her I’m sorry as I kiss her shoulders, because I know what comes down the track. I’m already a train wreck.
Afterwards, she sits between my legs in the bath tub and rests back against me as I squeeze a flannel across her chest, kissing her temple. With each press of my lips, I try to tell her I have to give her up.
‘I love you,’ she whispers. The first person who has ever told me they love me.
I wrap my arms tighter around her and let silent tears fall down my cheeks as my heart rips in two.
We lie there until the water becomes tepid, because I don’t know how to let her go. Eventually, I dry her down and carry her to bed. I lie back beside her and she nuzzles into my neck, her cheek on my chest, her leg bent over mine.
I’d tell her goodnight, tell her goodbye, but I can’t.
When her breathing evens out, I slip out of the bed. I kiss her one last time and leave.