The knock came a second time.
Dammit.
Hauling myself from the couch, I placed the heavy book on the coffee table and padded across the small apartment to open the door. I didn’t have a peephole, so risked unlocking and opening it a crack.
“Gil.” My heart hammered against my ribs. “Wh-What are you doing here?”
He rubbed his face with a shaky hand. “I’m not here to hurt you.” The tormented vow in his voice made my stomach squeeze.
“I know you won’t hurt me.”
“I’ll stay out here if you’re more comfortable.”
“You don’t have to do that.” I opened the door wider. “I know you won’t hurt me now that you have Olive back. Is she okay? Do you need anything?”
He grimaced. “You’re still so kind, even after everything I’ve put you through.”
My fingers latched tighter around the handle. “It’s not kindness, Gil. It’s concern. How are you...and her? You guys safe?”
“Safe?” He scowled. “Why wouldn’t we be safe? Jeffrey is dead.”
“I mean the online stuff. I don’t know if you’ve looked, but it’s getting scary. For me at least.”
His green gaze searched mine. “You’ve been reading up about me?” His tone stayed carefully neutral.
I’d never been one to play games or pretend I didn’t care when I did. I knew I should tell him to leave, close my door, and book that damn plane ticket out of here. Instead, I fell into old patterns and backed into my apartment in invitation. “We haven’t been in touch. I research a little at night to see if you’ve been granted a court date.”
His black sneakers crept over my threshold as if he couldn’t believe I’d invited him in. Where were his paint-spattered timberlands? Had the police confiscated them as evidence?
Most likely, yes.
They were the same size as those found by the body of the last girl.
A clue to the crimes committed.
“I haven’t heard when I’ll go to trial.”
“I can imagine the not knowing is driving you crazy.” I closed the door. “Have you got things arranged...for Olive?”
He shrugged helplessly. “How can I have another home ready when I can’t bear the thought of not being the one to take care of her?”
I nodded, backing away for my sanity.
It was so, so hard not to reach out and comfort him. Not to honour old promises to always be there in times of trouble.
I was his friend.
But that friendship now came with uncrossable boundaries and restrictions. “I’m so sorry, Gil.”
He sighed, raking a hand through his messy hair. “It’s nothing I don’t deserve.” His head tipped down as he followed me into the kitchen. His teeth sank into his bottom lip before he blurted, “I shouldn’t have fucking come. I know that. I’ve done my best not to contact you, even though I think about you every damn day. I know I have no right to be here...but I need to talk to you. I can’t end it like this.”
Goosebumps exploded all over me. “End it like what?”
“Like this.” He spread his arms as if incorporating our twisted, tangled lives. “Not able to have an honest conversation because Olive is there. Not able to be truthful and finally have the guts to give you answers to your questions.” He held up his hands in surrender, looking healthier than the last time I’d seen him. His colour was back and his wound no longer draining his energy. He looked ready to tear open his secrets and purge.
And as much as I wanted to finally understand, I didn’t trust what I’d do if I finally knew.
I shook my head, pulling the blanket that still caped my shoulders tighter around me. “It’s fine. We don’t need to—”
“We do.” He stormed right into me, shoving me back and pressing me against the countertop. His hands clamped on my hips, his forehead nudged mine, and my entire world combusted in a rain of comets.
I couldn’t swallow.
Couldn’t breathe.
Couldn’t blink.
“Gil...”
His fingers dug harder into my hipbones in denial of touching me. His nose brushed mine, his eyes closed, his lips came so, so close to kissing me.
We stood like that for an endless trembling second.
A second where our hearts pounded against each other. Where cymbals and castanets replaced my ribcage and stomach. Where we fought fate and battled with decorum.
“I can’t stop myself,” he groaned. “Not anymore.” With a belly twisting growl, he stumbled away from me, shaking out his hands, no doubt suffering the same surge of heat and chemistry I did. “Fuck.”
I shuddered, desperate for him to deliver on his threat, but grateful that he’d pulled away before he did.
My blanket lay abandoned on the floor.
My hands shook and body quaked, and I tripped to the fridge for something to do.
With my back facing him, he confessed, “I can’t sleep at night with wanting you, O. I’m fucking hard just at a single memory of you. I feel sick that I’m so goddamn hungry for you, because what sort of monster thinks about sex after he willingly betrayed your trust and prepared to trade your life for another?”
He laughed coldly. “I don’t know why you haven’t tried to shoot me yourself. Why you’re still standing there, listening to my bullshit, when you should call the police and have me arrested for intruding on your life all over again.”
Grabbing the cheap supermarket wine that was my guilty pleasure, I poured two generous glasses. “I know that’s the logical reaction. And I know I’m being stupid by not doing those things. But...I’ve asked myself the same questions, and I don’t have any answers. Why can’t I move on after what you did? Why can’t I just forget about you? God only knows, I should.”
Gil shook his head gently as I tried to pass him the glass. “I can’t drink alcohol.” He pointed at his stitched-up side with a self-conscious sigh. “Not while I’m healing. And now I have Olive back, I doubt I’ll ever turn to liquor again. It didn’t solve my problems; it only made them worse.” His eyes shadowed. “If I hadn’t been drinking that night, I would never have fucked you on my living room floor, and we might not be in this mess.”
My insides clenched at the crudeness. And the barbarity and the fact that my heart might be bruised and my common-sense in tatters, but my body most definitely had its priorities.
And it wanted rough.
It wanted anger, violence, passion.
It still craved a fight.
A rough, dirty, hot-as-hell fight.
Swallowing a big mouthful of tart courage, I whispered, “Maybe that was the only honest thing we did.”
“What?” His voice turned dangerous. His body went loose and rigid all at once. “What do you mean?”
My skin blazed with fire. I didn’t recognise myself. I didn’t know this demoness who thirsted at the thought of tearing at his body, scratching his scars, and taking from him like he’d taken from me.
I was hungry.
Hungry, hungry, hungry for the blunt, basic truth that came from wild inhibited sex.
“You let down your walls that night. You gave in to the years of build-up between us. Maybe you should get drunk again and see what else happens.”