Complementary Colors (25 page)

I just wanted to disappear.

Roy gave the cabby his address.

There was only the sound of tires on wet pavement and occasional slide of the windshield wipers. We turned away from the direction of the club, the parking lot, and the man I might have killed.

The cab fell through the snow until we stopped in front of Roy’s apartment. Powdered ice collected on the windshield only to be swept away.

I didn’t even realize Roy had gotten out until he opened my door. “C’mon.” The barest touch was enough to pull me from the car. He paid the cabby. I should have paid it, but my wallet was lost in my pocket.

Unlike before when I’d been here, the apartment was quiet. Was it early or late?

Roy guided me inside. “Is it okay if I take your coat?”

I didn’t know.

He peeled the scarf away with the coat, folded both, and laid them on the sofa. “Your pants are wet.” He made me sit on the edge of the bed. There was blood on my shirt. “How about I just throw everything in the wash?”

Roy undressed me. Every brush of his skin against mine forced me away from the edge. He collected all my clothes and wadded them up. If Julia saw my shirts and slacks being manhandled like that, she would have killed him.

“Dry clean,” I said.

“The clothes?”

I nodded.

“I’ll take them in the morning.”

I shook my head.

“You don’t want me to take them?”

“I don’t want them anymore.”

Roy put everything in a trash bag. I glanced at my coat and scarf. He took out my wallet. The coat and scarf joined the rest of my clothes at the bottom of the bag. Then Roy stuffed it in the trash.

“Do you have enough blankets?” Roy said. “I’ve got a couple more if you need them.”

The sheet was soft and the quilt softer.

Roy pulled out a wooden crate from under his bed. He took out two blankets; one he tossed on the couch, the other he wrapped around my shoulders.

I gripped the sleeve of his shirt.

“Aren’t you going to ask me?” I said.

“It doesn’t matter.” He sat beside me, pried my fingers open, and held my hand.

“Why not?”

“Because you’re okay.”

My stomach rolled. “You wouldn’t say that if you knew.” All the terrible things I’d done. “You’d hate me. I don’t want you to hate me.”

“I can’t hate you.”

Two points of pain blossomed under each ear. It spread down my neck and squeezed my throat. “You need to.”

“Why?”

Saliva flooded my mouth. “I’m gonna be sick.” Roy had me in the bathroom before the first heave pushed up everything in my stomach. I vomited bile into the toilet. The second heave knocked my legs from under me. Roy lowered me to the floor.

“Please hate me.” A dry heave snatched my muscles off my bones.

“Shhh—” Roy held me.

“Hate me.”

“Paris…”

“Please, Roy.” Tears fractured the world around me. Colors crawled up the walls and bled together. Every convulsion exploded with reds and greens. It was no use. The sickness my body wanted to expel wasn’t in my stomach. It was in me. It
was
me.

The sink was close enough for Roy to wet a washcloth. He brought it to my face. The dampness pulled the fire out of my cheeks. At the same time, Roy’s body next to mine promised warmth.

“I think I killed him.”

“Shh—”

“I went there to the club. I was going to go home with him.”

“Let’s not worry about it right now.”

“The man looked like Julia’s father.”

“Shh—”

“Not on the outside but the inside. I saw it in his eyes. Like the day he held the hammer. The way he looked at me.”

Roy wiped my face.

“The man at the club was going to kill me.”

Roy stopped.

“I wanted him to kill me.”

The faucet in the tub dripped. Roy’s heart beat against my ear.

“I wouldn’t get in the car. I told him to let me go. I told him. I tried to make him stop. I didn’t want to hurt him. He woke it up, and there was nothing I could do.”

“It’s over.”

“But it’s not. The blood stains and the terrible secrets it makes fester.”

“I’ll get rid of the clothes.”

“It won’t matter. I can’t hold it in anymore. I paint, but it doesn’t want to go away.”

Roy got the mouthwash off the counter and poured me a capful. “Here. That will get the taste out of your mouth.”

I sloshed it around and spit in the toilet.

“Better?”

“I should have been the one who died.”

He put me in the bed. “Do you want me to stay?”

“She asked me if I knew where he was.”

Roy stripped down to his boxers and shifted around next to me until I had my head on his shoulder.

“She begged me to tell her, and I said I didn’t know.”

He held me, and I cried myself to sleep.

Morning turned the kitchen into gold, and dust motes dance and twirled in the sunbeams. A door slammed somewhere, and a woman yelled. An infant cried for his mother. Then someone turned up their radio drowning the sounds of urban poverty under a steady bass thump.

Roy’s long lashes rested against his cheeks, and his eyes flicked behind his lids. Sleep had erased decades of worry, leaving behind a youthful innocence.

There was a scar on his chin and a flat round mole near his ear. Silver salted his shadow of a beard, and I itched to run my finger up his jaw just to hear the sound it would make.

What would life be like filled with simple moments like this? For time to be measured in heartbeats and exhales rather than seconds and minutes?

What would it feel like to know I was safe, not because of a lock on the door but because of the line of warmth pressed against me and the weight of an arm around my ribs?

The idea of never knowing cut me with dark blues and pierced me with gray. There were other colors too, but I didn’t know the names and had no control over how they mixed and where they flowed.

Roy opened his eyes. They were darker than usual, making him all the more rugged.

“How are you feeling?” He caressed my cheek; a dull ache followed his fingers.

How was I feeling? No anger. No contempt. Just more worry and concern. Words that should have meant nothing to me, but like everything else about Roy, they broke through the layers of color and line I’d wrapped myself in.

He ran a hand down my back. “Do you want me to get another blanket?”

“No.”

“You’re shaking.”

Because I was afraid of waking up another day without the man in front of me, the sound of his voice, and his touch on my skin. Roy had broken me open. If I lost him now, I’d fall into a place far darker than the rabbithole. I’d never needed anyone to want me.

Part of me hated Roy for that.

He pulled the covers higher. I shoved them away and sat up.

“What’s wrong?” Roy propped himself on his elbow.

“Why did you come get me last night?”

Confusion crumpled his features. “Because you needed help.”

I stood, and he moved to the edge of the bed. Roy reached for me, and I stepped back.

More colors I didn’t know and couldn’t name. I pressed the heel of my hand against the side of my head in a sad attempt to stop them from filling up my skull. Like everything else when it came to Roy, I was helpless.

He stepped in front of me. “Paris…”

I stumbled back. “No. Just…just…” I held up a hand to keep him back. “Just tell me why. Explain to me. All of it.”

“What’s to explain?”

I clenched my hands. Heat ate a path up my face. My throat tightened. Spit flecked my lips. “Everything, Roy! Explain everything! Your stupid park, your stupid slaughtered hotdogs, and your stupid, stupid sled! Goddamn it, just tell me what you want from me, because I can’t get away from it. I can’t get away from you.”

Roy held me prisoner against the wall, not with the strength in his body but the power in his eyes. That look I saw the first time we were together, only it had grown, taken over, come alive.

He cupped my face, and I couldn’t turn away. “I came for you because I care about you. I did those things because I wanted to give you something you’ve never had before. I want to show you that being with you wasn’t about sex, it was about you. Just you.”

“You weren’t a bit put off by sticking your dick in my ass before.”

“I know.”

“Then what changed? Why don’t you want me now?”

He touched his forehead to mine. “I do want you.” His sigh brushed my lips. “I want you so bad it hurts.”

“Then what’s stopping you?” If only he would throw me against the wall and fuck me. That I could understand. Those colors I could name.

“Because you can have sex with anyone but very few would ever want to love you.” Roy’s touch burned through my skin, my bones, and flowed over my body in a wave of need and lust. It ravaged me with a kind of desire I’d never experienced.

The room blurred.

“Will you let me?”

I swallowed, but my voice still cracked. “What?”

“Love you.” Roy rubbed his cheek against mine. “Please, Paris. I know it’s not what you’re used to, and it might not even be what you want, but it’s the most valuable thing I have.”

Those colors I didn’t know had a name now. I knotted Roy’s shirt in my fist. “I don’t know how.”

“I’ll teach you.” He kissed my neck.

“What if I fail?”

“You won’t.” Roy slid his hands down my body.

“It’ll hurt.”

“Only a little.”

No. It would chew me up and spit me out. But not before tearing me apart and breaking every bone in my body.

“Paris. Please let me love you. Even if it’s just for a little while. Even if it’s just this moment.”

I pressed my face into his neck. “I’m scared.”

“I know.” He pulled me away from the wall. “But I won’t hurt you. I would never hurt you.”

I believed him, but the precious gift he called love came with a price, and there wasn’t enough money in the world to repay the debt I would owe.

He maneuvered me to the bed and pushed me into the sheets. I must have made a sound, cried out or maybe whimpered because Roy shushed me and petted down my side.

Roy brushed his lips across my shoulders as he traced my arms, my fingers, and then my ribs, leaving a tingling outline around my body.

“It’s okay.”

Only it wasn’t okay. I couldn’t do anything. I didn’t even know what I was supposed to do.

Roy pressed his lips to mine, and with languid strokes of his tongue, he worshiped my mouth.

I was wrong to ever think I knew how to kiss. What I did was a gluttonous feeding. What Roy did, coaxing my tongue to twine with his, caressing my mouth with his lips, sighing into me, and stealing away my breath, was a kiss.

Roy stroked my aching cock once and squeezed my balls. I spread my legs wider, but his touch disappeared and it was like nothing below my waist even existed.

Frustration ticked out of my throat in small desperate cries. I pawed at him wanting more and getting none of it. Roy murmured something against my throat, but I was too ignorant to understand.

I wasn’t even sure I was capable of it.

Roy kissed my palm, my wrist, even my goddamned knees. Sometimes he held me close or far enough away to run his gaze over my body. The way he coveted me with his eyes made me burn.

“Please.”

Roy drew a hot line with his tongue from my neck to my shoulder. “Please what?”

“I need…”

He teased my lips with a caress from his. “What do you need?”

“Something…anything.” His cock in my ass, his mouth on my dick, his lips pressed to mine or his tongue invading me and raging battle.

I dug my fingers into the mattress. The muscles in my back tightened until my spine bowed. My aching cock bled precum on my stomach, but the need for release didn’t compare to the violent hunger Roy stirred inside me.

He blanketed my body with his bare skin. “It’s okay.” He thumbed my right nipple. An electric burst danced through me and settled in my nuts.

There was a hollow scrape from the bedside table followed by the rustle of things being moved around. A soft snick cut through the sound of me panting. Roy put my leg against his hip and slid a cold slick finger into my ass, and the air rushed out of my lungs. The mattress squeaked and dipped, then more fluid ran down the crack of my ass.

“Look at me, Paris.”

I’d die if I did. The power he held me with would cut me into pieces.

“That’s it. Show me your gorgeous eyes. Let me see how good you feel.” Roy added a second finger.

“More.” I tried to rock against him, but he braced me with a hand on my stomach while he pumped both of his thick fingers in and out of me, slicking up and stretching my opening to take his cock. I put my other leg on his shoulder.

Roy kissed my ankle. “I’ll give you everything, Paris, every part of me.” He took away his fingers, and the thick head of his cock pressed against my hole.

In one long stroke, he breached my opening, filling me fuller than any time before. It was forever before the weight of his balls pressed against my ass.

Roy chewed his bottom lip, and the cords stood out on his neck. For a while, he just stayed there, kissing the tears from my cheeks. Then he cradled me against his body—cherishing me, protecting me—and I clung to him. My life raft in the torrid wake of existence.

I realized then I’d been waiting my entire life to find him.

The muscles in Roy’s body flexed as he withdrew to the tip and sheathed himself inside me again. Every measured inch he gave me or took away was the more intense than the hardest fucking of my life.

I let myself flow into his touch and submit to his body. I let him command from me each second of pleasure down to the core of my fear.

He filled me, all of me and I hungered for more.

All the while he told me how he saw me. Not with words but with the way he touched me, kissed me, and…made love to me.

Roy raised himself on his arms, changing his angle and increasing the strength of his thrusts. “I won’t make you wait long. I promise.”

The well of fire building inside me crackled through my bones and danced down my limbs.

“Close, Paris.” My name came out on the back of a growl. “So close. I want you to come with me. Can you do that?” He gripped my cock and stroked.