Undertow

15. Fractured Heart Beating

15

FRACTURED HEART BEATING

My chest is tight and aching by the time I get back to Julia’s house. With the violence in The Shack, the living nightmare with Scarlett, the rushed timeline that will be impossible to overcome, it’s too much too soon when I wasn’t prepared for any of it.

My focus has been slipping. My guard down as my walls crumble with each passing second. I’m losing control and I just want to disappear. I just want…

I don’t even know. I don’t get to ask that question.

I don’t want, that’s the problem. I want to dissolve. To evaporate. To finally give up and?—

“Shaw?”

I stall at Julia’s greeting, numb as she approaches. I can’t feel, can’t think while she studies me in the silence. Her smile fades. Does she see? Is she finally starting to understand what the rest of them know? That I’m a ghost. No one sees me. No one wants?—

I flinch when she slips her arms around my waist. Her cheek presses into my shirt as she pulls tight, choking out the dark with just the smallest flicker of light. I close my eyes, breathing in her floral scent like it’s my oxygen.

The only air that will keep my dead lungs heaving, my fractured heart beating.

I can’t do this anymore. I can’t, I can’t, I can’t.

I clench my eyes shut against the pain. The memories. Every horrible thing I’ve done. Every horrific thing done to me. My entire existence is a giant weeping abscess of human filth.

My trembling hands lift to trap her against me and capture her beauty for one fleeting second of relief. I just need to breathe for a second.

Please, just the smallest gasp of air.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper. “I’m so sorry.”

Her hold tightens and I know she doesn’t understand my apology. The moment she does is the moment I lose her.

“You have nothing to be sorry for,” she says softly, nestling into me.

Everything. I have everything to be sorry for.

But I don’t say that. I can’t. I only close my eyes again and let the warmth of her touch flash through the hollow caverns inside me. I used to fill it with words, but even those have been failing me lately.

She pulls back to see my face, and this time when soft hands frame my head, I want to be touched. To be owned. Seen and forgotten all at once.

I rest my forehead on hers.

“Julia,” I whisper. Just her name is enough.

There’s still a soul inside me. There has to be because she found it. If I can just…

I lean in, desperate for a connection. To feel life. Vibrance.

I find her mouth, soft and warm, so eager for mine. She tastes like mint and permanence.

I need more.

I fist her hair, backing her toward the wall as my tongue sinks past her lips, seeking hers.

She gasps when I press into her, grinding for harsher friction. It’s still not enough as her palms push down my back and grip my ass to fuse us together. She pulls tight, rolling her hips over and over, scraping mine in sweet agony.

Fuck, it feels good.

I tug her hair to expose her neck and sample the warm, sweet skin. She moans when I push into her again, aching for relief. But there is no relief. Not with her. Not like this.

I grip the backs of her thighs and lift her into me, bracing her against the wall. Her legs tighten around my back. Her hands thread in my hair as she drives our wet, violent kiss. We volley for the lead, tilting and adjusting in a fruitless attempt to consume each other.

“I want to see you,” she gasps. “For real this time.”

I know what she means, and I’m too far gone to protest. After setting her down, I step back and rip open my shirt.

“You too,” I say, tracking her every movement.

She pulls off her top, revealing two perfect breasts I’ve seen before but didn’t properly appreciate. I need to taste. Touch. Explore.

I take a step, but she holds up her hand. “Not yet,” she warns, lowering her gaze to my pants.

With a pained breath, I slide them open and shove them down.

“Step back,” she says, her voice husky and breathless. “Farther.”

She slips off her shorts as well, standing tall like a gorgeous statue in just a small strip of black lace. She’s breathtaking and deadly. I’m frozen as her teeth sink into her lip, almost shy.

“The rest.”

I barely hear her final command, but I would have understood it without words anyway. Her desire is all over her face. Not just lust, but the same awe I feel when I look at her. That same need for something infinite, and the fear of what will happen if you don’t get it.

After stripping completely, I straighten, still several feet away. My blood pounds, my skin hot and tingling as her ravenous stare slides over my body. Across my face, down my neck to my chest, where it stalls as if taking in every tattoo, every line and groove that now belongs to her. She knows it. I see it in the way she studies me with a possessiveness that makes me burn from the inside out.

She’s not looking, she’s cataloging what’s hers.

My body.

My heart.

My soul.

“How are you so beautiful?” she whispers.

Because I know how to hide the ugly.

But I swallow the pain of the lies I’m telling with my silence, and advance.

She’s ready for me, already panting by the time my hands slide into her hair and my mouth finds hers again. She groans, kissing me back and pulling me into her. Hot skin on hot skin. Hands and mouths and electric collisions. She reaches between us to run her palm over me with deliberate, agonizing strokes and…

“Wait,” I gasp out. “Let me grab a condom.”

I move to pull away and her fist clenches around me, refusing to let go. I groan with a mix of pain and pleasure.

“I’m on birth control,” she says. “I haven’t slept with anyone in months. My last test was negative. You?”

I stare into her pleading eyes, my soul shredding right here in the dim living room light.

Am I negative? Yes. Am I clean?

God, I’m so fucking dirty she wouldn’t even be able to see past the grime.

And suddenly, I can’t. I can’t do this anymore. I’m a parasite, leeching her beauty to feed my darkness and soothe my aching soul. What does she get in return? Lies and a broken heart when she learns the truth. I know she wouldn’t want this if she knew who I really was. No one wants that person.

I take her wrist and gently remove her hand from my body.

“Shaw?”

There’s fear in her voice. It creeps into her eyes.

I can’t look and close mine.

“Shaw!”

I shake my head, my throat shut and chest so tight I can’t breathe.

“I can’t,” I whisper, taking another step back. It’s all I can get out.

“I don’t understand. Is it about the condom? I didn’t mean… We can?—”

“It’s not the condom.”

“Then what?” There’s a tremor in her words now, threatening tears. “Do you not want me?”

You’re the only thing I want.

The. Only. Thing.

I force myself to shake my head. “I don’t. Not like this,” I lie.

“ What? Are you serious?”

Somehow I manage to stand firm through my nod. “It’s…”

Oh god.

A stab of pain slices through my entire being.

“Shaw!”

“I can’t do this.”

Her eyes blaze with anger. “Stop it.”

“We’re moving too fast.”

“No!” she cries as she rushes at me. “Liar!”

She shoves my chest, and I rear back a step. “You fucking liar! I know you want this.”

I shake my head again. “I don’t. This was a mistake.”

I reach for my clothes, stumbling forward when she slams into me again. I catch myself and straighten, turning just in time for a vicious sting on my cheek.

The echo of the slap haunts the air around us as I flinch and look away.

I clench my jaw, both of us breathing hard in the tense silence. My cheek burns, but not nearly as much as my heart. I’m doing the right thing. The wrong thing for me, the right thing for her, and part of me sighs with relief that I still have enough of my humanity intact to distinguish the two. I may be a monster, but maybe I’m not a demon.

I’m not them . Yet.

“Why?” she asks, her eyes filling. “Why now?”

I swallow hard, blinking through the vice around my chest. “I’m not who you think I am,” I say before I can stop myself.

“No? Then who are you?”

I shake my head. I can’t answer that. I’ve already said too much.

“It doesn’t matter. Someone you don’t want. Let’s just finish this mission and?—”

“Bullshit,” she hisses, striding forward.

She’s right there, torturing me by being so close and so far at the same time. The only thing I want is inches away and I can’t have it.

“Are you the introspective poet who scavenges for beautiful words?” She pokes her finger into my chest.

Yes .

I close my eyes, trying to breathe.

“Are you the brave warrior willing to put himself in danger time and again for others?”

Yes.

“Are you the guy who makes me laugh? Challenges my intellect in a way no one has in a long time? The one who makes me burn from head to toe from a single touch?”

I shake my head.

“You are,” she corrects. I feel her warmth against my chest, the pressure of her arms around my neck when she settles close. “You are, Shaw. I know you are.”

But I’m not.

I’m not Shaw, and I’m not good. I’m weak. Too weak to fight both of us when she rests her lips against the sting on my cheek.

“I don’t care who you are,” she whispers. “You’re mine now.”

I’ve never watched a woman sleep.

Sure, I’ve seen them sleep. Heard, felt, waited, but never watched.

But here, in the quiet glow of the morning sun, I can’t look away from Julia’s serene expression. Everything in me wants to reach out and brush her cheek, feel the softness of her skin, the warmth of her breath. But I won’t risk waking her. I don’t think I could handle her distaste when she realizes I’m still in her bed. I’ll slip away soon, long before she learns she forgot to send me back to the couch after we had sex.

They usually want me gone before the moon hits its peak. I’m an indulgence, a regret , discarded like the empty room service tray or used towel on the bathroom floor. Ushered out to avoid the wrath of jealous partners or the embarrassment of being caught in a sordid moment of weakness. Sometimes they even try to pay me like a fucking sex worker, and I have to hold a polite smile through the humiliating exchange. They wouldn’t offer if they knew the real cost of the encounter.

But Julia.

God, if I never had to leave her, I wouldn’t. When she looks at me…

I shudder and force myself up before I get lost.

It’s not real.

You’re just a tool.

A weapon.

You’re a lie.

I swing my legs over the edge of the mattress, trying to remain as quiet as possible. I’ve just leaned down to scoop my shorts off the floor when I feel a hand on my back.

“Shaw?”

I clench my eyes shut, bracing for the fallout. “Hey. Yeah, um… sorry. I was just?—”

She grabs my arm, forcing me around, and...

She’s smiling?

Not just smiling. Her eyes are relaxed, gentle. Filled with… want.

I don’t know what to do as she drags me back to the soft sheets. I settle on my back, flinching when she curls into my side. Her arm slides over my chest, and I can’t help my own from latching around her and pulling her tight. I bury my nose in her hair, my lungs burning as I breathe her in. She must be able to feel my pounding heart.

“This is nice,” she murmurs, her voice still hoarse with sleep.

How? I’m just… me. Giving nothing. Doing nothing.

“What did you want to be when you grew up?” she asks, running her fingers along my side.

Chills rush over my skin, infusing deep bursts of pleasure I feel well beyond the physical. Just the smallest touch, but damn, it feels good. The best orgasm in the world can’t compete with the impact of a sincere caress. It makes no sense.

I blink through the pressure in my throat, my mind reeling as I stare up at the ceiling.

“Shaw?”

Closing my eyes, I breathe through the pain in my chest.

What did I want to be when I grew up?

Free.

“A writer,” I say instead.

She huffs a short laugh. “Of course. I should have guessed that, sorry.”

“What about you?” I ask before we get too far into my disaster.

Her light chuckle singes my insides, and I tuck her closer to me. This warmth. This light . I’m getting addicted—which scares the shit out of me—but I don’t know how to stop it. God knows I’ve tried, it’s just…

Her lips brush my shoulder in an effortless kiss . Short, chaste, and so fucking dangerous.

“Free,” she whispers finally. “I just wanted to be free.”

I choke on a breath.

“Free? What do you mean?” I force out. My steady tone doesn’t match the chaos inside.

She sighs, now running her deadly touch over my stomach. “It’s hard to explain. I guess… I’ve always felt trapped, you know? Like I was born into a life—a family— I don’t belong in. There’s so much I have to hide in order to survive and fulfill my obligations. I just want to be free to be myself and follow my own path. I don’t know what that path is, but I know it’s not this.” She pauses, and I feel her intense gaze. “Hey, you okay? What is it?”

I can’t answer this time. She’ll hear it in my voice. See it in my face. Feel it in my trembling body.

She can’t know I’m cracking.

“Shaw?”

I shake my head, wincing when she reaches for my cheek. She pushes up, her eyes searching mine with concern, so much compassion, and I can’t… I just…

Tears well in my eyes.

Horrified, I pull away and shift to the edge of the bed.

“Hey, what is it? What’s wrong?” Her voice is still so gentle.

She has to stop caring about me. She can’t!

I can’t.

No one can. Just…

My fingers tangle in my hair as I rest my elbows on my knees, struggling to draw in soothing breaths.

You can’t cry. You can’t break. Not here in front of her.

Never in front of someone else.

“Nothing. I’m fine.” But I don’t sound fine. I sound… shattered.

“Shaw.”

I shake my head, stiffening when her arms wrap around me from behind.

“I need to shower,” I say, breaking from her hold.

“Shaw.”

“I’m late.”

I push to my feet.

“Okay, but just stop for a second. Let’s?—”

“I’ll eat during my shift.”

I grab my shorts.

“Will you just… Shaw! Look at me!”

No.

I.

Can’t.

I’m saved by the eruptions of her phone. She grunts as she reaches for it, and I continue to the door like I’m going to the bathroom. Instead, I hover just out of sight in the hall.

“Hey. What’s up?” she says. “No. Why? Are you serious?” Her tone changes from bored to tense. “How?! Shit… Yeah, he has a shift at the resort today, what about it?… I really don’t think that’s a good idea.” Her voice lowers so I know she doesn’t want me to hear this next part. “Because we’ve used him enough,” she hisses. “I’m tired of watching him come back as a fucking mess. This isn’t right.”

My stomach tightens. I close my eyes and lean my head against the wall.

She’s fighting for you. What are you doing for her?

“Okay! Fine. But I swear if he gets hurt again I will hurt you back… I said, okay!”

“Dammit,” she mumbles a second later.

Lucidity doesn’t come easy, or rather I don’t allow it to. To be vividly living in color when all I long for is a muted response to my anguish

I’ll always savor the bitterness that comes with knowing time is working against us.

Vividly aware that I could never keep it, I guess the truth really is hard to swallow.

Longing to lose myself in the warmth of your breath, like the chill of my fate was extinguished whenever you chose to share the air in your lungs.

If only for a moment, you were my lifeline.

You left me wanting more right as I began to surrender to the weightlessness dragging me away from a life I could no longer keep myself grounded in.

-JD August 17