Chapter Thirty-Three Enzo
Chapter Thirty-Three
Enzo
Twenty minutes later, Tom sauntered back into his bedroom shirtless, in low-hanging black sweatpants, shoveling food from Tierney’s plate into his mouth.
My heavy-lidded gaze followed his movements.
He was contaminating his own sleeping space, leaving crumbs everywhere.
Things must be dire if he chose to eat out of the kitchen.
Yeah, no shit, he’s mourning his dead lover and falling apart.
Scooting up with my back against the headboard, I forced out an easy smile, grabbing the bottle of water on his nightstand and helping myself to a big gulp. I didn’t want him to see how shattered I was to be used as a cheap substitute in the absence of Matt.
“How’s the food?” I reached to the floor to fish the pack of cigarettes from my pocket. Fuck asking him for permission to smoke. If he was going to break my heart, the least I could do was break one of his trillion house rules.
“Divine. I didn’t think the Callaghan woman possessed a talent other than fucking up her life.”
I snorted and wagged the unlit cigarette in his direction. “Behave. She’s a good friend.”
“Doesn’t make her life choices any smarter.” He set the plate down on his nightstand, sliding into bed and scooping me from behind before I had a chance to find my lighter. “Just that she made one good choice in befriending you,” he murmured into the side of my neck.
Instead of reveling in the compliment, I found myself choked up with pain. Sure, he thought me worthy of Tierney’s friendship. But he didn’t find me worthy of his love. In fact, I was the very thing to put his mind off the fact he’d lost his real love.
I slipped from his touch and settled on the edge of the bed with my back to him, grabbing my pants. The mattress dipped as Tom sat upright behind me, flattening his palm between my shoulder blades. “Hey. What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” Oh, fuck. I sounded like a clingy girlfriend, and I didn’t like it.
“Don’t bullshit me, Enzo.”
“Don’t ask hard questions, then.”
I bolted to my feet and shoved my legs into my pants.
He didn’t deserve my freak-out. He’d done nothing wrong this time.
If anything, I was the one who kept pushing.
For exclusivity. For more time together.
And each time he gave in to whatever I wanted, I realized it was not enough. That I still wanted—no, needed—more.
This was torture. Madness. For me. For him. We needed to stop.
Sliding on my ribbed polo shirt, I started for the door.
“Hey, hey.” He stood and followed me in measured steps that made me even madder. The audacity of this man to remain calm while I was losing my shit over us. “You gonna act like an adult and hash it out or storm out like a kid? Thought you graduated from that nickname.”
“Guess even genius FBI agents get it wrong sometimes.”
“Very fucking mature.”
“Screw people fourteen years your junior, deal with the consequences.”
“I am dealing with them indeed.” He kept chasing me relentlessly. “Now your turn.”
I stopped in the living room and swiveled to push at his chest. “Stop.”
“Stop what?”
“Stop pretending like it was me you were fucking back there.” I pointed at his bedroom behind him, heaving. “Because we both know it was Matt. You’re not that tender and not that sweet when you’re with me.”
I hated that I wanted to cry. I hated that all I seemed to do around this man was face all the feelings I’d kept bottled up since I hit puberty.
And I loathed that I was desperate for the one thing he couldn’t give me—his heart.
But what got me the most was the knowledge I’d keep coming back for more, even if it destroyed me.
“What are you talking about?” He scowled.
Pushing my fingers into my hair, I twisted the strands in frustration. “I know what day it is.”
“Excuse me?” he drawled.
“I said, I know what day it is.”
He narrowed his eyes. “Commendable. Do you know how to read a clock and work a calend—”
“It’s the anniversary of Matt’s death.”
Silence. Thick and sticky and everywhere. We both forgot how to breathe.
“And you know that based on my shitty mood?” he asked finally, voice hoarse.
“I know that based on the fact I googled his name and found his obituary.”
The look on his face could only be described as well, fuck. Hardly reassuring, circumstances and all.
I didn’t know what was more embarrassing—the fact that I’d stalked his dead boyfriend online, or that I wasn’t even dignified enough to hide it. For a moment, Tom just stared at me like I’d ripped his heart from his chest. I exhaled, the black sludge inside me spreading wider and thicker.
“You don’t know what it feels like, competing with a dead man,” I said quietly.
“What?”
“I—”
“Stop.” He raised his palm. “I’m not doing this here. Let’s get back to bed.”
I huffed. “No.”
“Then get the fuck out.”
“What?” It was my turn to be scandalized.
“You can have doubts. You’re allowed to freak out.
Ask questions. Fuck, I even find the occasional stalking endearing.
” His voice was back to being steady, callous, uncaring.
“All of this, I can handle. But I won’t have you running around, jumping in and out of my bed every time something doesn’t suit you.
You wanna talk about Matt? We’ll talk about Matt. In bed. While I eat my dinner.”
Was it weird that I was happy he was giving me shit? In my twisted mind, it meant that he cared.
I followed him back into the bedroom and let him strip me naked again. Then we settled back in bed, and he returned to his food.
“Okay. You were saying?” He took a juicy bite of a dolma.
“I know you’re still in love with Matt, I know that you didn’t see me this week because you’re still mourning him, and I know that the eighth anniversary of his death is more disruptive to you than anything else.
Our deal is that this is exclusive, but casual.
It still is. A future for us is impossible.
But I draw the line at cosplaying as your dead lover.
Because the person you made love to tonight?
That person wasn’t me. You can love him without disrespecting me. The technology does exist.”
I clamped my mouth shut, panic fluttering through my bloodstream. Was I going to lose him over this? My argument didn’t even make sense. I was just jealous and didn’t know how to convey it.
“Are you done?” Tom set his plate down.
“Pretty much.”
“Good. So, I’m not in love with Matt anymore.
I did love him. I mourn him every day, and I’ll always miss him.
But we weren’t right for each other. This week has been hard, it will always be hard, but it’s not something that threatens to rip my life to shreds, and the person I just had sex with was you.
Not him. You. I won’t get into the nitty-gritty of it, because I have too much respect for both of you, but our sexual chemistry is unique and different from what I had with Matt.
Today was slower and more passionate simply because we were both in that kind of mood. ”
“You usually manhandle and spank me.”
“You like being manhandled and spanked.”
I really did. Fuck, I loved how dominant he was. It’s just that this softer side of him was great, too.
“We can do it any way you like, though,” he said calmly. “At any point, you can change your mind.”
“So…you didn’t pretend I was him?” I crossed my arms over my chest.
“Baby, I can never ignore your presence. It fills up the entire room. Probably the entire planet.”
I worried my lower lip. “So what’s with all the puzzles and mess around your house?”
Tom sighed. “I solve puzzles when I need to reorganize my thoughts, and I decided to order in because I’m trying my hand at letting go of complete control.”
“Why do you need to let go of control?”
He stared at me like I was the reason. But that couldn’t be, because if I meant so fucking much to him, he wouldn’t actively avoid seeing me every chance he could.
“And work,” I said accusingly. “You told me you were busy with work, and you haven’t even been there in three days.”
“I worked from home.” His eyes did not waver from mine, but he absentmindedly began tracing the skull tattoo on my thigh with the tip of his finger. “I didn’t say I didn’t work at all. Again, I was solving some things in my head. They had nothing to do with Matt.”
“And did you solve them?” My blood roared in my ears.
He stared at me strangely again, this time like he was trying to work out a difficult mathematical equation in his head. “I did.”
I thought I heard sadness in his voice. I didn’t like it. I didn’t like it at all those two unremarkable words tore at my chest like a corroded blade and poured acetone right onto the open wound.
“Okay,” I relented. “I’m glad it worked out for you.”
His eyes were still intensely searching my own. “Thank you. That makes both of us.”
“Why is this conversation making me uneasy?” My brows slammed together. I finally found the strength to tear my gaze from his, then pick up the joint I’d made for him before I got here, and a lighter.
“Because you have great insight,” he answered enigmatically.
“Meaning?” I lit the tip of the joint, inhaling deeply, letting the smoke hit the bottom of my lungs, the musky aroma spreading in the air.
“I’m trying to quit you, Enzo. I need to. Badly. But I’m failing. You make me feel…different.”
“Different how?” My voice thickened with smoke.
“I built my world in black and white, seeking order and control my entire life. In just a few weeks, you added so much color to it.” He inclined his head.
“You shook the dust and grief from my life like it was an old rug. I don’t like it.
It terrifies me. But I’m not sure I can go back to what it was, either. ”
I stared at him, speechless.
“The thing is…” Tom licked his lips. “You bring a lot of disturbance into my life. And what I cannot control, I usually destroy. Don’t let me destroy you, Enzo.”
“I won’t.”
Tom plucked the joint from between my fingers, pinching the filter as he brought it to his lips.
“Smoking is a filthy habit,” I said, feeding his words back to him.
He smiled ruefully. “Maybe you corrupt me.”