I felt boneless and spineless, his body the only thing holding me up. I melted around him, like a snowflake kissing the sun.
I wanted to feel him, to focus on the fusion of our bodies, to get lost in the mindless pleasure of his touch. His fingers twitched on my neck and I reached up, wrapping my hand around his, our gazes still held. “No,” I whispered with the final vestiges of breath. No, no. Not that. Only you.
He paused, a beat, then two. Something broke in his eyes, a mixture of relief and desolation that I could not understand. His fingers loosened on my throat and I let out a gasping breath mixed with a moan of bliss as he started moving. Zakai broke eye contact, pressing his face into my neck and running his soft lips over the place he had just gripped. He reached down and lifted my leg, thrusting steadily yet gently into me, his other hand moving behind my back so that he, not I, suffered the blows of the harsh, uneven wall.
Something had shifted between us, something more than the flare of anger and violence that had melted into a joining that was slow and almost tender, but I was too hazy with physical pleasure to focus on what it might be. “Open your eyes, Karys,” he murmured against my skin. “Open them very wide.” But he did not lift his face from my neck, nor did he look into my wide-open gaze. “That’s good, little star. That’s good.”
His thrusts increased in speed and fervor and I adjusted myself so he was making contact with my swollen tingly flesh with every press of his body. I held tightly to his shoulders as the pleasure built, the snow seeming to fall in tandem with our frenzied passion. It swirled and fluttered and dropped from the sky and I felt as though I was free-falling too, whirling dizzily toward an end both familiar and unknown.
My cry of release was stolen by the whirling white, the cold barely kept at bay by our feverish exertions. My fingernails dug into the fabric of Zakai’s coat as he too, shivered with release, his groan muffled by my neck as he pressed into me one final time. Our bodies sagged together as our pants of satisfaction filled the small space where we stood, connected by body if not still by heart.
Zakai pulled away slowly, his eyes shifting away from mine as we both adjusted our clothing. The quiet of the moment reverberated in my head. I felt off-balance, my emotions a twisted jumble of questions and confusion. I didn’t know if I should reach for Zakai or push him away.
He pulled his coat around himself, sticking his hands in his pockets as he met my eyes. For a moment we simply stared at each other, and I had the strangest notion that though he was right in front of me, if I reached for him, my hand would move through his body as if he wasn’t really there. A mirage. Nothing but a fevered dream. The misty outline of someone I once knew. Despite the warmth of the pleasure that had just danced through my body, I suddenly felt cold. Alone.
Zakai, as if reading my thoughts and agreeing with them, gave me a small, sad smile. “Goodbye, little star.” And before I could open my mouth to say anything at all, he had ducked out of the doorway and into the blizzard of snow. I stood there for a moment, my mind searching to make sense of what had just happened, ice forming around my heart as if the cold had leeched in through my skin. My muscles loosened as a burst of breath whooshed from my lungs. I took a step forward, my head moving back and forth as I searched for his retreating form. But the snow was blinding and had not left a trace of even his footsteps behind.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Braxton and Claire put a tree up in the living room and decorated it in sparkling lights and colorful glass balls. At night when Braxton went to bed I lay under it, squinting up at the glow and pretending I was beneath the stars. I took my final exams and school closed for the holiday break. The celebration of Christ’s birth came and went. Braxton bought me a brown purse with repeated symbols in the same shade of beige as that chair I’d once sat in as Cody Rutland told me I was a victim of sex trafficking. Claire squealed. “A Louis Vuitton! You lucky girl!” I smiled at her and thanked my uncle very much for the brown and beige purse. I didn’t like how “lucky” felt.
On the last day of the year, Braxton and Claire dressed up in fancy clothes. Claire had piled her hair up high and put on bright red lipstick. She’d brought a bottle of champagne with her, and Braxton popped it open in the kitchen, both of them laughing as it spilled over the top and Braxton brought it to his mouth, raising his eyebrows as he sipped at the foam.
They poured three glasses of the pale bubbly liquid and I followed suit when they both raised their flutes. “Happy New Year,” Braxton said. “To happiness. To abundance. And to Karys’s new life,” he said. “Happy early birthday.”
“Hear, hear,” Claire said as they both sipped their drinks. I took a small sip of mine, coughing when I inhaled some bubbles through my nose. I’d forgotten January first was my birthday. I’d only learned it six months before. And now I was officially going to be an adult. To Karys’s new life, Braxton had said. Did that mean my old life was officially gone? And what happened if I wasn’t ready to let it go? Would it disappear anyway like a blossom on a sudden gusty breeze?
When Braxton and Claire left for their party, I stood at the window, looking at the clear cold night beyond, missing Zakai so desperately I could hardly bear the pain. Where was he? We hadn’t spoken since that day in the storm. I’d waited. I’d hoped. But he hadn’t contacted me once. Was he cold? Hungry? Where was he staying? I felt lost and adrift. The anger I felt had died down to ashes and scattered in the winter wind. Half of me was gone.
A man and woman walked by on the street below, laughing and talking, their heads bent together against the cold. I watched them disappear out of sight and then I went to the computer, opening up a tab and looking up Giselle Blanchet. Several pages came up, the first one obviously her modeling agency. There was a page of models she represented and I scrolled through their faces, one more beautiful than the next, pulling in a small breath and stopping when I saw Zakai, his eyes staring at me from the screen, a small smirk on his gorgeous face.
He was working for her. Was he living with her too?
I clicked to the tab that said, “contact,” and without allowing myself to change my mind, I dialed the number listed under Giselle’s name.
My heartbeat quickened and my breath staggered as I waited, the dial tone loud in my ear. After a moment a woman’s voice came on the line. “Giselle Blanchet.”
I froze, my mouth opening to speak but no sound emerging.
“Hello? Who’s there please?”
“Uh, hi,” I finally croaked. “This is Karys Grant. I was . . . I thought—”
“Hello, Karys. How did you get this—” She made a tsking sound. “Oh damn, I forgot I was having my work calls forwarded here today.” A pause. “I suppose you’re looking for Zak.”
Zak. For a moment I was confused, but then realized she was using a nickname. “Yes,” I squeaked. “I was hoping you could help me get in touch with him.”
“Of course I can. He’s living here. Hold on.”
My stomach dipped as she held the phone away from her mouth and called, “Zak, love, are you out of the shower or still in bed?” A door opened and I heard what sounded like the pounding of water in the background and Zakai’s muffled response.