Falling in between, p.16
Falling in Between, page 16
“James.” A man’s voice booms across the poolside, and Elijah slowly pulls his hand away and sits up.
I subtly close my legs as two shadowy figures cross the pool deck. “Secluding yourself from the rest of the party, I see,” the man says, stepping into the soft light that streams from the house.
I narrow my gaze to the woman at his side. Her dark hair is swept back in a French twist, and her blood-red lips lay flat across her face. It’s the same woman from the rooftop, and she’s glaring at me like I’m her arch nemesis. Her fiery gaze swings to Elijah when he stands to shake hands with the man. I follow suit and push to my feet.
“Nathan,” Elijah says.
The man laughs. “It’s not typical to see him bring a woman to these events.” He holds out his hand to me. “I’m Nathan, and this is my wife, Meredith.”
“Oh, we’ve met,” Meredith says, dropping Nathan’s arm and slinking around Elijah like a snake. Her gaze bores into mine while her fingertips trail his shoulder. “Are you going to play with us tonight?” She bites at her lip, and Elijah moves out from under her touch. The thought of him fucking her causes my stomach to twist.
Nathan’s eyes drag over me like a filthy rag.
And it’s just too much. I can’t do this.
This won’t make it any easier. It won’t make it hurt any less, it will just ruin my ability to believe we had something. And goddamn it, I want to be able to look at the stars again without hating them.
“Excuse me while I go to the restroom.” I turn on my heel and quickly head toward the patio stairs.
I hear Elijah call my name, but I ignore him. By the time I reach the open doorway, my pulse is thrumming in my neck. I’m halfway through the large living room before I stop dead in my tracks. Right in front of me, a woman lays on the couch, naked with her legs spread and a shirtless man between them. Two other half-naked men flank her sides. I blink, watching while the two men grope and suck her breasts. The moral side of me tells me to look away, but I can’t. The lavish furnishings that surround them make this almost artistically beautiful. Other guests walk past unfazed, while I stand frozen in shock that suddenly gives way to intrigue. I focus on how tightly her eyes are closed, on the way her breasts rise on ragged swells while her fingers play with the hair of the men kneeled around her in an act of worship. She seems so free, so comfortable. And I’m almost envious that she’s able to enjoy something most people would be too afraid to explore. The attention of the men at her sides drops to her lap when she opens her thighs wider for the man between her legs.
Mixed signals fire through me. A wicked heat simmers in my veins. It’s not until I look away that I realize the other people scattered about the room are kissing, groping, undressing each other.
“What the fuck…” I whisper just before I smell leather and spice.
“Demi…” Elijah grabs my hips and spins me around to face him. His nostrils flare and a crease forms in his brow. He’s uncertain. “I thought I could convince myself…”
I swallow when he reaches for the strap of my dress, slowly sliding it from my shoulder.
“Convince yourself of what?”
“That I was the one setting you free. But I was wrong. It’s you who’s set me free.”
I’m motionless, like a deer in headlights. How could I possibly be setting this man free?
“You’ve taught me that I’m capable of things…”
My heart pounds. My breathing is labored. My legs won’t budge to move me out of danger’s way, and I’m about to be hit head-on and left on the side of the road for dead. “Elijah…” I breathe.
“I know now. Please, don’t make me wait any longer.” He grabs the zipper to my dress, slowly unfastening it while he backs me toward the hallway. He slips the top of my dress down, exposing my breasts. My nipples tighten when my back hits the cold wall. From here, I can see the people in the other room, but my body is shielded from their view by Elijah.
“Let me have you,” he says.
My pulse hammers so hard it makes me woozy. I should stop this, but I want him so badly. Just one more minute… His teeth rake over my throat. I moan at the sudden pleasure of him pinching my nipple between his fingers. He yanks the dress over my hips. There’s the soft rip of the stitching before the material crumples to the floor. My heartbeat tumbles into a panicked frenzy, because I’m now standing naked in a stranger’s mansion.
He grabs my thighs and lifts me, wrapping my legs around his waist before he pins my bare body to the wall. Before I can say a word, his hand is between us, his fingers thrusting into me fast and hard while he watches. I glance down to see his fingers work in and out together. The sight of my exposed body draped around him and his fancy suit is almost more than I can handle. I want him naked. I want him fucking me. Here. In this hallway. In the living room with all those other people. I don’t care where. At this moment, I just want him and his fantasies and all the sordid desires he can conjure.
I imagine what it would be like to have those other men serve as spectators for our personal porno.
“Do you want to fuck me?” Elijah fingers me harder, pulling me to that brink with practiced ease.
“God yes.” I tug at his hair, yanking his head to the side so I can bite his neck.
He fights away from my hold and grips my bottom lip between his teeth before kissing me hard and gracelessly, like a savage. “Will you let them watch when I fuck you?”
I should say no. I should shove him away, but the way his muscles are shaking like he can barely restrain himself, the people now fucking in the other room—it renders me unable to think.
I want to know what it feels like to let go, to do things I shouldn’t. For one night.
“Tell me yes.” The desperation in his voice comes off as a plea.
“Yes,” I whisper, and he rips me from the wall, carrying me down the hall.
“They can watch,” he kisses me again. “They can get close enough that they can almost taste your pussy, but they’re not touching you.”
He bumps into an open doorway. “I want them to see how your cheeks blush the perfect shade of pink when you come.” A door closes behind us. “I want them to hear how you say my name like a prayer.” The lock clicks, then he drops me on a bed. The scent of lavender floats up from the soft sheets. It’s so dark, I can’t see, but I can hear him unfastening his pants, his clothes rustling as he strips. The mattress dips, and then his heavyweight is over me. Naked and warm.
“And that’s the problem, Demi,” he whispers. “I want all those things, but what I want more, is just this.” He grabs my chin, then presses a reverent kiss on my lips.
There’s no one else in this room. It’s just us.
“Only you,” he says, then moves away. A wrapper tears before he settles back between my thighs, slipping his arms beneath mine and placing his hands on my shoulder for leverage. He stills just when he nudges my entrance.
I’ve been debased to the most basic of human instincts, survival is no longer important. Just this. Just him. Everything comes to a sobering halt. All those words, the things outside that locked door, are fantasy, but us—this—is real.
Elijah takes a breath, dropping his head to my shoulder. “I’ve wanted you since the first time I laid eyes on you,” he says. “But the last thing I wanted to do was hurt you.”
That could mean eight-hundred different things.
His hold on my shoulders tightens. I expect him to slam into me hard and brutal, but instead, he painstakingly sinks into me, only to stall. His teeth bite into his bottom lip on a silent hiss. I whimper and claw at his back, needing all of him. I grab on, pulling him close. “Please. Fucking please, Elijah.”
“Jesus Christ.” His warm breath fans over my neck, his hard chest presses against my breasts, and I arch my back, attempting to draw him deeper. But still, he doesn’t budge. He remains barely inside me, his face hovering over mine.
And then he pushes into me completely, and we fit together like a lock and key.
My nails dig into his broad back. My eyes close on a sigh. This is everything right now. The relief, the feeling that the entire world begins and ends with us in this bed, limbs tangled, mouths together—it’s every-fucking-thing.
“Fuck.” His teeth dig into the sensitive flesh between my neck and collarbone. “I care more about you than I know what to do with.” He moves inside me.
“Don’t tell me things like that,” I whisper, raking my nails over his back.
“It’s true. This—” He pushes into me so deep my breath catches. “This isn’t something you feel with just anyone. Trust me.”
A twinge of pleasing pain shoots through me, and I grind against him, seeking more. “Elijah…” I dig my nails into his shoulder blades.
“Tell me this isn’t real.” He rolls his hips, coaxing small ohs and ahs from me. “Because this is the realest goddamn thing I’ve ever felt.”
He’s right. It is. And it terrifies me.
“I never had a fantasy until I met you,” he whispers, placing a kiss to my neck before he grabs my hips.
With one swift movement, he rolls onto his back, gracefully carrying me with him.
My palms land on his chest, and I still with him inside me. Our eyes lock as I move slowly and fluidly. “You’re so fucking perfect.”
His hands grip my hips in a bruising hold as he guides me like I knew he would when we danced on the rooftop. I wish I could break our stare, because it’s making me hope this is real when it never can be. We’re two different people from two different places in life. Different worlds, but here, in this bed, things which can’t be spoken bleed into our movements, and it’s perfect. This is what love should be. All consuming. Unstoppable. Something that makes no sense in a world that’s too rational.
“Jesus, woman,” he groans, crossing his arms around my back and sitting up, so we’re face to face. His fingers rake through my hair, and he pulls me close to him, skin to skin with open-mouthed kisses.
Each soft brush of his chest against my breasts, each gentle tug on my hair, every kiss and roll of his lips drag me deeper into some hopeless realm he’s created. I’m so lost in him that it would almost be right to whisper, “I love you,” but even if I wanted to, I couldn’t. Because every time I open my mouth to swear or moan, he moves again. Hitting places that have never been touched, and I can’t form one syllable, not a single sound.
Fisting my hair, he tugs my head back. His tongue trails my neck to my ear. “I would give up everything for you if I could.”
His touch and words, the gentleness of this act when I expected it to be savage, it’s built to the point my body can bear no more. A wave of pleasure pours over me like molten lava, destroying and scorching everything in its path. And just as soon as that first wave subsides, another rolls in hard and swift. Then a third that consumes every last nerve ending and sends them up in a blaze.
I claw at his back, begging him not to stop, and he doesn’t.
I’m breathless, my muscles shaking when he pushes into me on a string of curse words, then stills with his finger tangled in my hair, his arms like a prison across my back.
And then he collapses onto the bed dragging me down with him.
I’m lost, because I’m ruined.
22
A splinter of early morning sunlight wavers over the hardwood floor. Worry rolls through me like a storm cloud, black and heavy with rain. I shouldn’t be in this bed with Elijah’s arm around me, but my heart wants nothing more than to make me a fool.
Closing my eyes, I chew at my lip and exhale. Here I am, sick that I feel more passion in one stroke of this man’s hand than in all the combined kisses of a lifetime.
I agreed to let people watch us, and while you’d think that’s what bothers me most about last night, it isn’t. He said he wanted to fuck me, and when a man like Elijah Banks fucks a woman, he tears her in two, limb from limb. But I’m still in one piece. What we did was make love behind the guise of taboo whispers. I’d give up everything for you if I could. His words echo through my mind, along with the ghost of his touch.
This is so messed up.
My heart beats erratically in my chest. In a matter of weeks, he’s caused me to slowly unravel.
With every day I’ve given him, I’ve offered him more power to completely obliterate me. Everything about this is irrational, impulsive, self-destructive—the very definition of love. Love is the one thing that will never make sense. It exists whether you want it to or not. I’m falling—have fallen— in love with a man who doesn’t even know my real name.
My throat threatens to close with panic as I carefully slip out from Elijah’s hold.
Elijah’s clothes are piled on the thick wool rug, and I realize my dress is somewhere in the hall. I want out of this room, out of this stranger’s house, away from the man who makes me unable to think.
I grab his white dress shirt from the floor, slipping my arms through the sleeves. The distinct, earthy scent of his cologne surrounds me. I turn my face into the material, breathing that in while fastening the buttons. He’s going to be so hard to let go.
With my back to the bed, I slide my heels on and stare at my reflection in the dresser mirror. If this doesn’t look like a mistake, I don’t know what does.
The door is right there. I should leave. Pretend I’m Lot and Elijah is Sodom and Gomorrah, but I can’t resist the temptation to look at him once more, and against my better judgment, I turn around.
He’s sprawled out on the bed, the sheets crumpled around his waist. A sharp tug forms in my chest, begging me to lie down next to him and curl into his side. I want to comb my fingers through his messy hair, trace the maze of tattoos on his arms.
I fight a swarm of emotions while trying to burn him into my memory. Once I’m satisfied that I’ll always have this moment where I can say I took a risk, that I didn’t play it safe, I quietly slip out of the room.
_____
My mind is still in a fog by the time I reach the York Street Station. I move against the flow coming up from the tunnel, lost in my thoughts, only half aware that I’m in nothing but a man’s button up and a pair of black stilettos.
I can’t possibly love him. That’s insane. Foolish. Love is something that should take time.
I wait on the platform, trying to recall the moment I knew I was in love with Harold. I chew at my lip, my eyes trained on the trash laying on the empty track as I sort through those filed away memories. But, try as I may, I can’t recall ever knowing. I can’t remember craving Harold’s company. He was just…comfortable. After a while, I assumed that was what love was—comfortable.
“Shit,” I whisper.
The ear-splitting screech of metal on metal fills the tunnel as the train brakes, sending hot air blowing around me. I fight to keep Elijah’s dress shirt down. People file off, cell phones in hand, briefcases in tow—all giving curious glances as I blindly stumble on. It’s New York City. Out of all the crazy things you see in the subway, you wouldn’t expect a woman in a man’s dress shirt and heels to garner such attention.
One man in a suit stands, offering me his spot. I thank him as I drop onto the orange plastic seat. Shortly after I’m settled, the doors ding and the train starts down the subway, jostling and clanging as it picks up speed.
I loved Harold. I must have…but when I compare the way I felt about him to the way I feel about Elijah, there is a stark contrast. Elijah consumes my every thought. Being around him gives me a buzz, a high. Harold never gave me so much as a flip in my stomach until I caught him screwing the housekeeper.
Groaning, I drag my hands down my face, wishing I could pause my racing thoughts.
Before long, the train comes to a stop. I hear the announcement: “This is a Queens-bound F-train to Jamaica-179 Street.” But I don’t get off. I keep sitting, stop after stop.
The crowd thins out at every station, but I’m too lost in my thoughts to move.
My entire life has been the next step. Everything has been logical. Predictable. Safe—Until Elijah. Something about him made me leap out of my perfectly constructed box. I called love at first sight bullshit, but maybe I only believed that because I was a disappointed idealist.
My phone dings with a text.
Elijah: We need to talk.
Me: Okay.
Elijah: Around six?
Me: Sure.
Elijah: I’ll pick you up.
The doors chime. “Jamaica-179 Street.”
Ironically, I’ve reached the end of the line.
23
Not only did I lie and call in sick to work today, but I spent the day lamenting seeing Elijah tonight. Eight hours after I bailed and I’m still aggravated with myself because this is as juvenile as it gets—running out the morning after and trying to avoid the awkward conversation of why.
I’m frustrated, because I’m hurting myself and I believe, in the end, I’m hurting him, too. I now wholeheartedly believe in the saying “I met the right person at the wrong time,” and I just wish I could stick my head in the sand until he’s gone. I want to avoid the heartbreak and what-might-have-been conversations.
“Total Eclipse of the Heart” blares from Dot’s apartment as I wait by the street. The irony doesn’t go unnoticed.
People pass by on the sidewalk: a mother with her two children, an elderly man and his Schnauzer. I count the random men who stroll past on cell phones or smoking cigarettes, and I wonder why it couldn’t have been any of them. Out of all the men in the world, there is no reason for the universe to see fit to throw me into a collision course with a man I can never truly have. Other than, the universe has made me her bitch.
Halogen headlights blind me when a car turns onto the street. My stomach kinks and knots as the Tesla pulls to the curb. Simon’s door opens, but before he can climb out, I have my fingers wrapped around the handle.
“I’ve got it,” I say and climb into the back seat—the empty back seat. He didn’t come. I sit stunned for a moment, worry pummeling through me.
