I kissed him like he kissed me...with devotion, idolization, and a cold gust of fear.
This was truth.
This was authentic and legitimately real.
We kissed forever.
Our heads choreographed in their seduction, our mouths a perfect fit, our tongues meant for each other.
My hands swooped up his naked chest.
He flinched and kissed me harder as my palms felt his thundering heartbeat beneath the mixture of paint and flesh.
We couldn’t stop.
We couldn’t end whatever spell cast around us, dragging us deeper, confusing us, ruining us. I’d slept with Gil twice. I’d loved him for years. Yet there was something singular about this kiss.
Something unique and special and absolutely terrifying.
This wasn’t about sex.
It wasn’t about power or passion.
This was deeper and darker and dangerously raw.
His soft groan made my heart bloom like a rose, its petals straining for whatever sustenance he could offer. All while the tangle of thorns in my stomach warned me not to fall. Not to put myself through the pain of Gilbert Clark again.
His body tensed as he tried to pull away. His tongue retreated and his lips thinned, and I prepared to withdraw from the most spectacular kiss of my life.
Only...as space encroached on our togetherness, he pulled me back. He jerked me into his arms as if he couldn’t bear to let me go, and I moaned in agony.
Couldn’t he see neither of us were equipped for whatever fallout would follow?
Locking our lips together, he kissed me with a desperation that burned. Our sex had been explosive and almost angry. Both times. But this...this was totally different. It wasn’t playing games with our lust but with our hearts.
And I was unbelievably scared.
A snarl built in his throat as his tongue lashed mine. Then, with a haggard groan, he forcibly pulled away.
Keeping his eyes downcast, he scrambled from the shower and ripped a black towel off the rail on the wall. Wrapping it around his waist, he stalked from the bathroom without a word.
* * * * *
“You can wear these,” Gil muttered as I stepped from the bathroom in a matching black towel. “Seeing as your clothes are, eh...”
“Torn and painted?”
He nodded sharply. “Yeah.”
“Thanks.” My voice was soft and quiet as I took the offered clothes while we stood in his living room. Licks of colour still baptised us from our lack of cleaning and too much kissing in the shower.
His eyes met mine.
Any sign of an emotional connection was gone. Snow and ice decorated his features, placed there by self-preservation. “I’ll show you where you’ll sleep.” Turning on his heel, his white T-shirt and grey sweatpants looked delectable with his bare feet and damp hair.
I clutched the clothes and towel and followed him as he opened the door to the right in the graffiti artwork of jungles and wildlife. My eyes strayed to the left door. The door I’d caught him exiting the night vodka and lapsed decisions ensured a memorable event on my hands and knees.
What’s in there?
My curiosity clawed to find out as I stepped over the threshold into Gil’s bedroom. I paused, studying the dark slate-grey walls and the simple king mattress on the floor. No bedframe. No side tables. No lamps or art or sign of habitation.
An impersonal box with no hint of the complex man standing beside me.
I frowned, sensing a pattern with his belongings. Either he didn’t have time for the typical stuff an ordinary person did or he lived frugally.
Peering deeper into the shadows, I noticed indents in the beige carpet where a tallboy would’ve stood. There were signs of a rug at the bottom of the bed. Hints that this room wasn’t always so sparse.
“Did you always live this simply, or is it a new lifestyle choice?” I asked, feeling as if I’d once again trespassed and wasn’t welcome.
Gil raked a hand through his yellow-streaked hair. Polite decorum camouflaged barely leashed sorrow. “Over the past year, I’ve sold some stuff.”
“Why?”
He winced as a tidal wave of pain washed through his eyes. “Doesn’t matter.”
My stomach twisted.
That response was getting old.
I wanted to ask if it was related to his regular bruises, beatings, and mysterious secrets, but I bit my lip and stayed silent.
What was the point when I already knew?
Heading toward the small wardrobe in the corner, he pulled out fresh sheets and blankets. Tossing them onto the mattress, he stood and shrugged as if he was as lost as I was about all of this. “I’ll, um, leave you to rest.”
“We haven’t even had dinner.”
He grimaced as if I’d announced he had to fight a hundred wolverines and battle for his life instead of eating a meal with me.
His reaction bruised me. His tension made me fake a yawn. “You know what? Doesn’t matter. I’m not hungry.”
He gave me a grateful nod. “Good.”
“Okay, then...” I moved toward the bed, uncomfortable and desperate for my own space.
I wanted to go home.
I wanted to be alone...so I could come back when I was calmer and tell Gil once and for all that he had to choose.
Choose me.
Choose help.
But Gil gave me a tight smile and bowed his head. “Goodnight, Olin.”
Olin.
No more nicknames. No more thawing.
Hugging the clothes he’d given me, I nodded as he stepped from the room. “Goodnight, Gil.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
______________________________
Gil
-The Past-
I’D BEEN PAINTING a lot.
Ever since Ms Tallup hinted at what she wanted from me, I couldn’t outrun the terrible sensation of sickness. Each class we had with her, I was repulsed. Each look she gave me, I was petrified Olin would guess something was wrong.
I despised Ms Tallup for taking the one place where I found sanctuary and turning it into yet another cesspit. I was no longer safe there. I was as hunted in those corridors as I was at home, and the stress steadily increased my sleepless nights, giving me a temper toward Olin when she didn’t deserve it.
The only thing that helped was when I lost myself in a drawing. Sketching had been the Band-Aid I needed, but when I stole some spray paint and decorated the side of an industrial building one night while everyone slept, I found a drug I needed to eradicate the symptoms of my life.
If only temporarily.
I hadn’t told Olin I’d been breaking the law.
I hid the overspray on my fingers and didn’t show her my sketchbook again in case the images I drew scared her—images of violence and gore and people being tormented by circumstances outside their control.
But tonight, Olin’s parents had been particularly cruel to her. She’d shown me a text her mother had sent during school. Some short sentence about going to a gala and for her to fend for herself. It wasn’t anything unusual apart from the gala was for the children of the employees who worked for their telecom company.
Her parents were hanging out all night with their employees and their children and didn’t even want to take their own.
Arseholes.
The second the class ended, I’d stolen her hand while throwing a loathsome look at Ms Tallup, and yanked Olin from school grounds. We used the small amount of money her parents gave her for dinner and shared a burger and fries, then blew the rest on some game parlour in downtown Birmingham, playing air hockey and racing car games, earning a few tokens to win a silly stuffed ostrich which became Olin’s new nickname for the evening.