Pleasure's Edge (29 page)

She shook her head. She didn’t know what to say.

She fol owed Alec mutely as he guided her through the restaurant, got her coat, slid it over her shoulders. She didn’t say a word as they crossed the street, as he handed her into the passenger seat of her car. He was as gentlemanly as ever, concerned, which made her heart ache even more.

The rain started as they pul ed into the street. It beat in a soft staccato against the windows.

“Are you going to be okay?” he asked her.

She nodded. “Yes. Sure.”

She could not look at him. She couldn’t stand that surge of emotion whenever she saw him. She didn’t want to breathe so that she wouldn’t draw in his scent. But she had to breathe, of course.

The car was inundated with that scent of forest and ocean. Clean and masculine and earthy and Alec.

Oh, God.

She real y did not want to lose it until she was home alone. She couldn’t do this in front of him. Because if she did, she’d have to admit to him why.

Impossible.

She bit her lip, clenched her fingers until the nails bit into her palms, hard and hurting enough to distract her.

She kept her gaze straight ahead, letting her vision blur, until the rain and the lights from the streets al blended together in some watercolor smear. Alec reached over and tried to take her hand, but she avoided him, pretending she needed to pul a tissue from her purse, cleared her throat.

Surprisingly, he didn’t try to talk to her anymore, didn’t ask her any more questions. Final y, he pul ed up a few buildings down from her place and parked. She started to open the door, but he grabbed her arm.

“Okay, Dylan. You’re going to tel me what’s going on now.” His voice was firm, demanding. He obviously knew something was wrong, that she wasn’t real y sick.

“Alec—”

“No, Dylan. Tel me.”

“I can’t.”

“Can you at least look at me?”

She shook her head, staring straight ahead. “No.”

“Is this going to be another scene like the one where you refused to tel me about your mother?”

“This isn’t going to be a scene at al . And please don’t mention my mother right now. That’s not fair.”

“Why not? I won’t know why unless you tel me, Dylan. What the hel is this about? Did I say something to offend you? Did Dante?” She laughed, a short, sharp bark that hurt her throat on the way out. “No. You haven’t offended me, Alec. Can I go now?”

“Hardly. Not unless I’m going up with you. And I have a feeling that’s not happening.”

“No, it’s not,” she said quietly. “I’l have to ask you to take a cab home. May I have my keys?”

“Fuck, Dylan.” He handed them over, and she shivered at the heat of his fingers as he pressed the keys into her palm.

He was quiet a moment, but she could hear his breath through the patter of the rain on the roof of the car. She wanted to get out, to run, but she couldn’t gather enough breath, enough strength, to move.

Maybe because you know this is it. The last time you’ll see
him.

A sob burst out: that suddenly, that unexpectedly. She didn’t even have a moment to bite it back.

“Jesus, Dylan.”

He yanked her into his arms—his good arm, anyway—but she fought him off, pushing him away as hard as she could.

“Stop it, Alec. Just stop it. This is not your job right now. This is no BDSM scene. You are not the dom.”

“What? I didn’t think I was at the moment. This is just
us
.” She looked at him then, saw the shock on his face. And an edge of pure fury.

“No it’s not, Alec. There is no ‘us.’ I have to go. Please just let me go.”

“And you’re not going to tel me why?”

“Why? Because you are not a relationship type of guy, Alec. And I am not a relationship kind of girl. Which makes this al impossible from the start. But now . . . it’s more impossible than ever. And I cannot do this.”

Tears were pouring down her face. She didn’t bother to wipe them away. It was too late for that. Too late for everything.

“Dylan, is that what this is about, the state of our relationship?

Look, we need to talk about this.”

“I’m done talking,” she said, her voice low, her throat tight.

Strangling her.

His eyes were blazing. He looked stunned. He looked very much the way she felt. Painful, to see him like that.

She turned away. And opened the door. He paused just long enough for her to jump out, her feet hitting the wet sidewalk with a thud.

She moved down the street toward her building as fast as she could in her high-heeled boots. The rain soaked her hair in seconds, dripped down the col ar of her coat.

He wasn’t coming after her; she would have heard him open the door of the car, would have heard his footsteps. And with his long legs, he would have caught up to her easily.

Come after me, damn it.

Don’t come after me.

Damn it.

It had been three or four days. She’d lost track, somehow. She’d been sleeping, mostly, waking to make a cup of tea, a piece of toast, then back to bed, retreating under the covers, under the extra quilts piled on. She couldn’t seem to get warm, though, no matter what she did.

She hadn’t read a book, watched television, spoken with anyone on the phone. And she certainly hadn’t worked, hadn’t written a word. She couldn’t bear to be in her own head, but she couldn’t bear to be out of it, either. And talking to anyone about this, even Mischa . . . impossible to say the words out loud.

She sat in her bed, curled beneath the white comforter, her pil ows piled around her like a gentle fortress. There was a cup of tea on the nightstand, a box of tissues. A smal pile of them crumpled and scattered on the floor like snowflakes.

She’d opened the curtains that first night, and hadn’t bothered to close them. She’d been watching the sky, as it went from the deep black of midnight to the iridescent fog of morning to the paler gray of midday. But always, the sky was shades of dark, just as she felt on the inside. Dark and partial y numb, when she wasn’t sleeping or crying like a baby.

The worst times were those moments when the sobs came spewing out of her, wrenching her, hurting her throat, until she had to wrap her arms around her body, physical y holding herself together. She never let that go on for too long. She was too shamed by it. Disgusted by her own weakness. It was too . . .

obvious. Too literal. Too ugly. But it kept happening, again and again, as though it was never enough. She couldn’t seem to empty herself of grief.

She thought of him constantly. His strong hands, his beautiful, masculine face. His impossibly broad shoulders. The contrast of his roughness and his gentleness with her. His laughter, always tinged with a wicked edge. His scent.

She swore she could stil smel him al over her apartment. On her skin. Like something that had become so deeply ingrained in her bed, her wal s, her body, it would never go away. Maybe she believed that was true.

Perhaps she real y was losing her mind.

She almost wished she would. Maybe then she wouldn’t be wracked with pain every waking moment, her chest twisting with a hard, cold lump that seemed to never go away.

Sleep wasn’t much better. She dreamed of him constantly.

Erotic dreams of Alec touching her, kissing her, spanking her.

Terrible dreams where they were arguing, or he was holding her down and yel ing at her that she was a fool and he was leaving her.

Or the most horrible, the dreams where some faceless person came to her to tel her he was dead, where she saw his pale, stil body, just as she’d seen her brother’s.

She didn’t know which was worse: waking up wanting him, or crying because he was gone. Either way, she felt absolutely adrift.

Lost. Abandoned, even though she’d been the one to walk away.

It would have happened sooner or later. He would have left her somehow. And she could not take it. Better to get it over with. To grieve for him and be done with it, because the longer she was with him, the more she loved him, and the more this would hurt.

She’d picked up the phone a dozen times to cal him, and put it right down again. What was there to say? Neither of them was any different just because she loved him. No, that was a lie.
She
was different. She was a mess. Out of control. Weepy. Immobilized in a way she hadn’t been since she’d lost Quinn. And even then she’d functioned in at least some minimal way because she’d had to, for her mother’s sake. Someone had had to keep it together.

Not this time. This time there was no one to care but her.

She’d never felt so lonely in her life.

He hadn’t cal ed her. Not that she would have picked up the phone. But the fact remained, he hadn’t tried to talk to her, to stop her, to see her. Which only deepened her conviction that she’d done the right thing, that she’d done what was necessary.

It didn’t make her feel any better. Nothing did.

She picked up her tea and sipped, but it had grown too cool.

She set the cup down. She was too lethargic to get up and brew more.

They drank tea the first time they’d met, at the café at the Asian Art Museum. It was amazing, how much he’d revealed about himself in that first interview. How unself-conscious he’d been. He always was, on a mental or psychological level. The only thing he’d ever refused to discuss with her was emotion.

Not that she was great at that herself. Emotions were something she normal y avoided like the plague. A character defect, she knew. But it had kept her safe. Until now.

Her eyes pooled once more, and she sniffled, wiped her face with a clean tissue. Her eyes, her nose, were raw. And she was an idiot to have let this happen.

She lay back on the pil ows, let her body sink in, remembered how fluffy and white the down pil ows at Alec’s house were. How safe, how cocooned, she felt there. With him.

The tears spil ed over, ran down her cheeks, and she let them fal while she watched the afternoon sky darken, watched the rain start. Watched as the drops built on the windows, slid down the glass in long liquid rivulets. Let her sobs blend with the sound of the rain hitting the glass, a hard, rhythmic pelting. Nearly painful to hear: the rain, the sounds she was making.

The rain fel harder, turning into a heavy downpour, and she cried harder, in deep, hurting surges.

She felt hopeless. Helpless. Empty. And she felt at that moment she might never recover. Never feel any better. She felt doomed to the very grief she’d been avoiding her entire life. And that she had now caused herself.

Alec paced his office, back and forth, ful of impatience, fury, like a caged animal. His computer was on, the cursor waiting in his open document like some blinking, nagging voice. But he couldn’t sit down, couldn’t write. He felt like he was going to crawl out of his skin.

He hadn’t written since Dylan had left him sitting in her car on Sunday night. It was Thursday evening now, but he’d done no work at al , despite a pressing deadline.

He’d gone for long rides on his bike, worked out like crazy at the gym. He’d driven out to Granite Mountain and done eight miles of strenuous hiking, but he stil couldn’t seem to get his head on straight. Tomorrow he’d drive up to Camp Muir on Mount Rainier; he’d heard that was a rough nine miles or more. A hike like that should wear him to the bone, exhaust him. Maybe that’s what he needed . . .

What he needed was Dylan.

God damn it.

He sat down in his chair, stared at the screen, pul ed up his e-mail, found her address. He started to type. But what would he say? That he missed her? He did. He missed her so badly it was like a wound in his chest that never closed, never stopped aching.

That he wanted to see her? Not likely. She’d made that very clear.

And he didn’t do non-consensual. If she didn’t want him there, he wasn’t going to force himself on her.

Chicken.

He sighed, ran a hand over his goatee.

He was a goddamn chicken. The non-consensual crap was just that: crap. It was a great excuse for not al owing himself to get in over his head.

That was crap, too. He was already in over his head. Way over.

As in fucking drowning.

He loved the woman.

“Ah, Christ.”

He stood up, paced some more.

Had he actual y just admitted that to himself?

Did it count if he never told anyone?

But he wanted to tel someone. He wanted to tel
her
. If only he hadn’t screwed this up already with his Mr. Non-relationship Guy line. He’d always thought he was simply being honest with the women he saw. He liked to get that out in the open right away. But it was nothing more than a self-protective device. It kept him at a distance from everyone. And now he’d final y found someone he actual y wanted to get close to . . . But how would she be able to trust his feelings for her after the things he’d said to her?

He
barely trusted his feelings for her, and he felt it like a knife in the chest: that cutting, that deep, that intense.

He loved her.

Dylan.

He pictured her face, her high, rounded cheekbones, that lush mouth, her huge gray eyes, as clear as if they were cut from pure quartz. That hair of hers, like flames around her face, wild and smel ing so damn good he wanted to taste it, to touch those silken curls with his tongue. And a body that was smooth, lithe sin.

She responded like a natural submissive. But underneath it was raw fire, enough intel igence, with a touch of stubborn anger, to chal enge him in a way he’d never been chal enged before.