The Contradiction of Solitude Read online

  There was a warning there. Low and threatening. I didn’t miss it. And neither did Chloe. Her eyes went wide and she quickly looked away.

  “Of course he is dear. I recognized him immediately,” Mrs. Statham filled in, not seeing the territorial pissing that was occurring in front of her.

  I grinned. I couldn’t help it. Layna had laid claim to me. I knew it was in my genetic make-up to drag her back to my cave. To rip and shred any perceived threat. But I found it unbelievably sexy to watch her cut another woman down with only her lethal eyes. Just because she wanted me for her own.

  I shouldn’t have let anything get in the way of being with her last night. A woman like Layna was too easily loved and lost. Too easy to slip through unsuspecting fingers.

  I had to hold on and hold down while I could.

  Before it was too late.

  “Thank you for the brownies,” Layna said, giving her elderly neighbor a smile that never reached her eyes. Eyes still trained on Chloe who wasn’t casting flirting glances anywhere anymore.

  “You’re welcome. If you have time, you could come up and have something to eat later. I made chicken salad this morning. It’s Chloe’s favorite.” Mrs. Statham beamed at her shrunken granddaughter.

  Layna, still staring at the increasingly uneasy Chloe, bared her teeth, more of a sneer than a grin. “Thanks, but we’ll be busy.” Again, those words were meant as a brand. For me. For this stranger who dared to step on what was hers.

  Then Layna closed the door, carefully putting the plate of brownies on the table just inside the entryway. She walked past me and into her living room, turning on lights as she went, even though the sun streamed through the windows.

  “I waited for you,” she said without preamble. My moment of reckoning had come.

  “I’m—” I couldn’t say sorry. She would never accept the apology. What could I tell her that she would understand?

  “I had a rough night,” I admitted, settling on the honest truth.

  Layna nodded and folded herself into an overstuffed armchair. She looked small, vulnerable even, enveloped in cushions and pillows.

  “I should have called.”

  “You didn’t.”

  She sounded pained. And I thrilled at making her feel that way. That pain was mine. All mine.

  “I couldn’t.” It was the truth. It was an excuse.

  “Tell me,” she said, looking up at me. And I fell. Fell. Into coal black eyes and the hint of fire still flaming bright.

  “I can’t.” More excuses. Tongue-tied lies strangling in my throat.

  My eyes flittered around the room, landing again on the line of framed pictures on the windowsill.

  I walked towards them, shielding my eyes from the glaring sun. Blinding me. I couldn’t see.

  She still sat in her chair, watching me. Closely. Like an insect under glass. Examining. Careful.

  I picked up the third framed picture. I had looked at the first two before.

  A pretty dark-haired girl wearing glasses. A scar on her cheek and a crooked nose. A photograph taken outdoors by a picnic table. The girl was looking off towards something I couldn’t see. She didn’t look happy.

  She looked…lost.

  I held up the frame. “Who is this?”

  “Family.” The same, vague answer. I looked closer at the girl in the picture, trying to see a resemblance.

  There was none.

  I put it back and looked again at the other two girls I had noticed last time I had visited. The redhead and the blonde.

  They were her family too. But they looked nothing alike.

  “Family is more than blood. It’s an unbreakable bond between people…sometimes complete strangers.” She sounded angry. Hateful. Bitter. She didn’t want to talk about the girls in the photographs. That was obvious.

  But my curiosity was getting the better of me. I couldn’t help it. This complicated girl was an enigma. I didn’t understand her at all. A small yet powerful voice deep inside told me that I probably shouldn’t try.

  “Are they strangers? Your family?” I asked her, repositioning the photograph I had picked up back in its spot on the ledge.

  “Aren’t all families?”

  “I suppose so,” I agreed, sitting down on the couch, facing her. Her apartment was so cold. The air conditioner was apparently turned on high. Goose bumps broke out along my skin and I rubbed my arms. Layna was unconcerned with the temperature. It seemed to suit her.

  “I should have come to you last night.” I ran my hands through my hair, feeling like an idiot. I had lost my head. And over what? The voice from my past? A voice I shouldn’t hear at all?

  “Tell me,” she repeated and this time I could only comply.

  “I’m not who you think I am,” I began. I couldn’t look at her. I was afraid. I was giving her a small piece of who I was. Not enough, I was sure. But it was all I could give right now.

  “Who are you, Elian Beyer?”

  Elian Beyer.

  That name.

  I hated it.

  But I couldn’t take it back. It’s who I had become. I couldn’t give her that. Not yet. I wasn’t ready.

  “I’m a guy who has had to run far, far away.”

  Layna uncurled her legs and leaned forward, her arms braced on her knees, her hands dangling between. She looked at me with an intensity that left me shaking.

  Reeling.

  “What are you running from?” she whispered. She sounded on edge. Excited even. Was that right?

  I frowned, not understanding her reaction. But there was something in her easy acceptance of secrets I couldn’t voice that made me want to unravel everything. To lay it all out at her feet and leave it there for her to pick over like a vulture.

  “My parents are dead. My dad, as I told you, died before I left home.” I gripped my hands together hard enough to break bone. I started to lose feeling in my fingers. It kept me grounded. It helped me speak of things that were almost too painful to be real.

  “My mother…she passed just a few years ago. I didn’t go home. I couldn’t. I know that makes me a selfish ass, but I hadn’t been back since three years after my sister—” I choked up. I couldn’t finish the sentence.

  It was the thing that had dogged my every step. It was the event that had ruined my whole life.

  “What happened to your sister?” Layna asked. Her voice was once again soft and even. I closed my eyes and wished she’d just keep talking. It was easier to slit myself open if I could just listen to her speak.

  I couldn’t. I wanted to give her the story she asked for—the truth we both craved.

  But I couldn’t.

  There were some things too dark to see the light.

  My hands were shaking and my mouth sealed shut. I couldn’t say anything more.

  Then Layna was on her knees in front of me. I hadn’t seen her move. She was suddenly there. Her hand on my thighs, her beautiful, beautiful face turned up. Her coal black eyes that saw more than I wanted her to, piercing, shattering, incinerating holes.

  “If the words hurt, then stop. I don’t need to hear them.” She put her hand on my chest, just over my thumping, thumping heart. “You’ll know when you’re ready to cut this out and give it to me. Until then, we’ll wait.”

  My god, this woman. The things she did to me. Every inch. Every pump of a willing heart.

  “I want to give it to you.” It sounded like a plea.

  Layna dug her fingers into skin, protected only by the thin material of my shirt. I wanted to wince at the bite of pain. She pushed. She burrowed. She planted herself in. Roots deep.

  “Not yet.”

  She rose up on her knees, her fingers still bruising my pliant flesh and she kissed me. Tongues and teeth and blood. Mixed up and falling down.

  I wanted skin. Hers. I wanted to touch it and own it.

  Mine.

  And for that moment.

  She belonged only to me.

  And the demons that nipped at my heel
s were kept at bay.

  For now.

  I woke up to the sound of breathing. Deep sighs made in sleep.

  I stared at my bedroom ceiling, unmoving. My naked body pressed against compliant skin and sex soaked sheets.

  The darkness rumbled in the farthest recesses of my heart and I held it close. I knew what it wanted.

  I rolled onto my side and tucked my hand beneath my cheek. It was daylight. Nighttime was hours away. Yet here we were. Supine in the aftermath of momentary bliss.

  I longed to be touched. Held. By Elian.

  Sweet, trusting Elian.

  Loving, unconditional Elian.

  Because I knew at the end of it all, these hours of hot words and liquid fire would have to sustain me. It would be all that I had.

  His lovely face was lined with worries that weighed on him. His tears had long since dried and his merciless grip had slackened and fallen away.

  He breathed. His heart continued to beat. His dancing green eyes fluttered madly behind closed lids in his dreams.

  I wondered what he saw when he fell asleep? Were his nightmares as beautiful as mine?

  I placed my hand on his chest. Thud. Thud. Thud. Small red imprints on his skin. Half moon divots from my nails. Perfect tattoos on smooth, unblemished skin.

  Elian groaned, as though my touch hurt. I pressed harder, watching him begin to squirm. Moving away from my hand, trying to run.

  Far, far away.

  But he couldn’t run.

  He had nowhere to go.

  He would soon realize that I was all he had.

  He rolled onto his front, the blanket falling to his lower back. I froze.

  In our rush to be together I hadn’t taken any notice of what he hid away underneath his clothes.

  Buzz…

  He was here. With us. Always with me. I delighted in it. I was revolted by it.

  I felt like I was turning inside out.

  I wanted to taste it. The piece of my history branded on Elian’s skin. The symbol of all my love. All my pain.

  On this man’s skin.

  Mine.

  I leaned over, my hair brushing his soft, soft back. Elian shuddered, curling in on himself.

  No!

  I flattened my hands on his quivering body and he stilled. Unmoving. Breathing. Beating heart.

  I traced the lines of the magnificent star with my tongue. Clear, wet possession. Up. Down. Side to side. Round and round I went.

  Tasting the blood.

  Tasting the fear.

  Tasting it all.

  I moaned low and raw in the back of my throat, nails digging into flesh, tongue lapping at the colors of my hate. Of my love.

  Of my soul.

  “Layna,” Elian groaned, trying to turn. I wouldn’t let him.

  I replaced my tongue with my teeth. Scrapping. Nibbling.

  Devouring.

  Mine.

  “What are you doing to me?” he cried as I began to move my body against his. His front still pressed to the bed. His back destroyed by the magnificent star, the nautical star, my only focus.

  He writhed. I took.

  I wanted.

  All of it.

  “I need to be inside of you,” he whispered, his fist against his mouth, biting his knuckles.

  “Why?” I asked. Lapping. Biting. Mine.

  “It’s where I belong.”

  I said nothing. No denial. No consent.

  Only this.

  “Please,” he begged. I smiled. True and real.

  I let him roll over.

  I let him take my body.

  I let him have what he needed.

  I had already taken what I wanted.

  It was still wet on my lips.

  “I’m guessing that I’m forgiven?” Elian asked much, much later. His bashful question posed in the most careful way possible. His worries were back.

  This time they belonged to me.

  “You’re forgiven,” I assured him. And he was. He had given me so much. More than he could possibly know.

  He touched my hip and I flinched. It was too late now, he had already seen.

  “Wow,” he breathed, leaning in close. His lips made contact with resisting flesh. He kissed my magnificent star so much like the colors I tasted on his back.

  “It’s just like mine.” Elian frowned.

  Don’t…

  “What does this mean to you?” he asked, sounding hoarse and cracked. His question falling over itself as it tripped out of his mouth.

  “It’s so I can always find my way home,” I explained.

  He kissed the star again. Again. Again. Kissing it until the skin was red from his lips and tongue.

  “What does it mean to you?” I put my hand on the back of his head, stilling him. Stopping him.

  I could feel his warm breath on the star. A touch of moisture from hidden eyes.

  “Not forgetting,” he finally answered, and I smiled. He rested his cheek against my hip, looking up at me through soaked lashes. I wiped the stray tear from his face, tucking it between my lips, sucking it down.

  “I can lose everything else…but some things shouldn’t be forgotten. Never.” His body coiled tight, and I knew this meant so much to him.

  “I agree with that completely.” Elian ran his nose along my hip, over the points and lines of my tattoo.

  “Where are you from, Layna Whitaker? Why are you here?” Kisses. Callous illusions fogging my mind. Making it easy to let honesty bleed from hidden wounds.

  “Norton Hill, Maryland,” I told him. Would he know? Would it matter?

  “What’s it like in Norton Hill?” Kisses. Blissful addictions, I was consumed.

  I leaned back against the pillows, covering my eyes with my hand, blocking out the sun. “It’s small and restrictive.”

  Elian chuckled. I could feel the vibrations in the tucked away parts of me that hadn’t seen the light in too long.

  “So, like every other small town in America.”

  I shook my head, dismissing his amusement. Throwing it away. “No. Not like that. It’s a place that sucks you dry and you’re left with only a husk. Nothing of who you were before. It’s not a place for love and acceptance. It’s full of hate and judgment.” My voice trembled. I hadn’t realized how much emotion was still tied to the place of my childhood.

  I hadn’t wanted to give Elian any of me. There were things, secret things that belonged only to me. But I handed one of them to this man, who had kissed my star and given me his truthful tears. Bricks fell down. Walls wavered.

  “I’m sorry, Layna,” Elian gave me his apology that had nothing to do with him. And I accepted it. It felt good.

  I ran my fingers through his hair and gave it a little pull. Partly in anger, partly in jest.

  “Where does Elian Beyer call home?” Elian laughed, making this dark discussion into something sweet. Something good.

  How was he able to do that?

  I tingled. No buzzing.

  “Diamond Creek, Pennsylvania. Home of the Dolphins.” I giggled. I giggled? I couldn’t stop. He did this to me. Elian Beyer. Unconditional Elian Beyer.

  “Are there a lot of dolphins in Pennsylvania?” I asked, my fingers straying down his back, over the star. He kissed mine. I touched his.

  Our stories…our stars…our unyielding history that wouldn’t go away.

  In our blood.

  In our hearts.

  Always.

  “Uh, I don’t think so. It’s a big joke actually. Dudley the Dolphin is the high school mascot. My sister—” He stopped abruptly. Completely.

  Done.

  He wrapped his arms around my waist and buried his face in my stomach. I braced myself for his emotional onslaught. I waited for the tide to take me under.

  I pulled away. Back and far. Distant from his needy hands and grasping mouth.

  “Tell me about your friends.”

  Distance. Safe. Away.

  Elian sat up now that we weren’t touching. He
pulled the blanket to cover him. Our nakedness making us too vulnerable.

  “They’re all right. Just some people I met through the studio,” he dismissed. Not important. He didn’t care. I could see that.

  “What about the girl?” I couldn’t help but ask.

  Jealous. Mean. Spiteful.

  I hated and hated.

  “What girl?” he evaded. Not looking at me when I knew he wanted to. The smile he tried to hide gave him away. He liked my jealousy.

  So I gave it to him.

  “That bitch that you slept with.”

  Elian’s mouth dropped open. I had shocked him. I gave him a tiny smile of my own.

  “How did you know about that?” He wasn’t denying it. I knew he wouldn’t. He wasn’t that sort of person. He was the good kind.

  “That day in the park, it was all over her face. She hated me on sight. She doesn’t know me, but she didn’t have to. You wanted to be with me. She wanted to be with you.” I shrugged, pulling my hair over my shoulder.

  Elian watched my face, his eyes falling to my hair draped across my chest.

  “Does it bother you? Knowing she and I were together?” he asked, licking his lips, his green eyes bright. Hopeful.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “It’s over. There’s no one else.” Necessary assurances given eagerly.

  “I know.”

  He reached for me and I went to him. He held me close and I let him fold me in. Tight. Together.

  “Did you leave anyone behind in Norton Hill? Is there anyone out there loving you? Waiting for you to come back?” Elian asked, kissing the top of my head. I let my lips linger in the hollow of his throat. Just there.

  “No,” I murmured against his heartbeat. I thought of love and loss. Of ghosts and haunted memories. Of monsters ever present.

  “No one.”

  “Who are you, Layna Whitaker?”

  I should tell him. Shine light on my withering darkness. But I liked being alone with my secrets. They deserved to be kept.

  Truth was the only enemy.

  It was the echo of a mutinous scream. Angry at being released on an unready world.

  “Would you be willing to hang out with my friends tonight?” Elian asked. We were dressed and having coffee in my kitchen. I never had people in my home. I wasn’t sure how I felt about it.