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  “Can I move now?” he asks.

  “Uh-huh,” I say and he rolls on his back. I think he’s going to get up, but then he does something else. He runs one hand down his stomach. Slowly. I look up to his eyes and see he’s watching me as he touches himself.

  I’ve never seen Sylas touch himself like this in front of me. He grips himself and I watch as he gets hard. I’m instantly so turned on, I almost throw the sketchbook on the floor.

  “Do you like what I’m doing?” he asks, moving his hand up and down his cock.

  “Uh-huh,” I say. I sound like an idiot.

  “Do you want me to continue?” he asks, his eyes full of blue fire.

  “Yes,” I say, my voice raspy. I’m stuck to my chair, unable to move. He strokes up and down and his eyelids shutter in pleasure. He moans and arches his back. I’ve never seen anything so erotically beautiful.

  His hand moves faster, up and down, up and down, with a little bit of a twist. I’m completely mesmerized. It doesn’t take long before his back bows off the bed, his head thrown back and a part-grunt-part-growl escaping his lips as he climaxes onto his stomach.

  “Fuck,” he says, his eyes opening. They’re drowsy and sweet. He smiles at me.

  “Did you enjoy the show?”

  “Yes,” I say. My mouth is dry.

  “Show me. Show me how much you enjoyed it.” I know exactly what he’s asking. Now I’m the one running my hand over my stomach and below the waistband of my pants.

  “No. Take them off. I want to see you when you touch yourself,” he says. Now he’s the one with the rough voice.

  I get up and strip off my bottoms and sit back down on the chair, propping one of my legs up. I’m giving him a full show, but I want to. I’ve never felt sexier than when Sylas is watching me.

  I lick my fingers and move them lower, rubbing them just above my clit. I have a routine that’s guaranteed to get me off when I’m alone. It’s going to take even less time with him watching me. I’m close already.

  “Fuck, Saige. You’re making me hard again,” he says. My head rolls back and I move my hand faster, pressing harder and harder on my center.

  Just a little more…

  “Oh God,” I moan, throwing my head back as my body throbs with the orgasm. It goes on so long, I can barely stay in the chair. When it’s over, I nearly melt to the floor in a puddle of post-orgasmic bliss.

  I open my eyes to find Sylas working himself again. We could go like this all night long. He comes again and then runs his hand through the cum on his stomach.

  “I should probably shower,” he says. “Join me?”

  I do, and I come two more times before I fall into bed.

  I’m almost glad now when I wake sweating and shaking and crying. It means that another piece of the puzzle is given to me from my own mind. I have to endure the pain to get another bit. A sacrifice for my secret.

  I assemble the parts, but they still don’t make a whole. There isn’t a complete picture. There’s only the trunk, my small hand releasing the trunk, blood on a linoleum floor and now scratches on my arms and legs from a prickly bush. Little slashes of red all over my pale skin. I repeat everything in my head so I don’t forget it. I’m still worried that they’ll vanish from my brain if I don’t work hard to remember them.

  “Maybe… Maybe you’d want to talk to my therapist? I hate the way that sounds, but it might help,” Sylas says. I know it might, but I don’t want to share this with someone. Not even a professional. I want to be the one to unlock the secrets of my own brain.

  “I’ll think about it,” I say as I get up to take yet another shower and rinse off the sweat. This has become my nightly routine and I don’t see it changing anytime soon. Not until I can figure out this entire nightmare and what it means.

  Twenty-Four

  Over the next few days I finish the drawing of Sylas, which actually turns out okay. He declares that I’m a brilliant artist and I just tell him he’s biased. I slog my way through the rest of my finals. Sylas is usually gone during the day, but he doesn’t tell me what he’s doing. I figure he’s earned the right to keep a little bit of mystery and since he seems happy when he comes home, I don’t bug him to tell me about it.

  I redo drinks with Lo on Friday and it’s nice to have some girl time. I’ve missed her. Just as Sylas needs to spend time with his friends, I need to spend time with mine. I make plans to go out with the group the following Friday night to keep checking off the bars on our list. Lo asks if I’m going to bring Sylas and I ask him, but he says that he already has plans with the guys, which makes me happy.

  Saturday I get to reunite with Lizzy and it’s every bit as fun as I thought it would be. I don’t think of anything bad when I’m with her. She’s better than any sort of stimulant.

  The visit is going perfectly until one of the nurses knocks on Lizzy’s door and says she has another visitor. I give Sylas a look and he doesn’t seem surprised.

  “Who is it?” I ask, but then my question is answered as my father walks in the room.

  I want to curse and scream at him to get out, but I won’t curse in front of Lizzy, or make a scene.

  “What are you doing here?” I say, trying to keep my voice level. He has his hands behind his back and takes only two steps into the room, still hovering near the doorway.

  “Hi!” Lizzy says, waving and then going over to him. I reach out to stop her, but Sylas grabs my shoulder and forces me to stay sitting on her bed.

  “Did you plan this?” I hiss at him as Dad and Lizzy start talking. He brings out some flowers from behind his back and she squeals in delight. I can’t help but notice the look on his face as he stares at her. Pain and longing mixed together. He’s never looked at me like that.

  “He contacted me. I thought it was time and that it might be good for the two of you to talk.” I’m so angry with him for doing this without asking me.

  “You should have said something,” I whisper as Lizzy throws her arms around Dad. I don’t like this. I don’t like it at all.

  “We’re going to talk about this,” I say to Sylas before getting to my feet and walking behind Lizzy, putting a protective hand on her shoulder.

  “What are you doing here?” I say, keeping my voice pleasant and a sweet smile on my face. Good thing I’ve had enough practice pretending I feel one way when I actually feel something completely different. I slip into my old role like putting on a comfortable pair of boots.

  His eyes flick down to my hand on Lizzy’s shoulder. That’s as clear a signal as anything.

  “I came for a visit. And to talk to you.” Well I sure as hell don’t want to talk to him. He burned that bridge.

  I’d be lying if I said a part of me didn’t want to throw my arms around him and hug him like when I was a little girl. Cry and tell him I love him and that I’ll always be his little girl.

  But I’m not going to do that.

  “I don’t want to talk to you,” I say slowly, making sure my voice doesn’t tremble.

  “Hey, Sister, how about we go and see if we can talk one of the nurses into giving you a popsicle, hm?” Sylas says and Lizzy gets totally distracted by the promise of popsicles. He leads her out of the room, leaving me and alone with my father.

  I drop my smile on the floor and want to smash it under my boot.

  “What are you doing here? Why the fuck are you here?” I ask. I want to punch him. I want to shove him out of the room, out of this place.

  “I came because I don’t want to lose you. You’re my daughter, Saige. I can’t lose you.” Should have thought of that before he decided to choose his work over me.

  “It’s too late. It’s already done,” I say, spinning around and going back to sit on Lizzy’s bed. “I want you to go. You don’t deserve to be here.”

  He doesn’t deserve to be around Lizzy. He hasn’t earned the right.

  “I know I’ve made mistakes, Saige.” His voice breaks and I’m glad to finally hear some emotion from him. H
e seemed so callous last week. So cold.

  “Some mistakes can’t be undone,” I say.

  I hear his footsteps and then a hand rests on my shoulder.

  “I love you so much, Saige. You’re one of the only things I don’t regret. I can never regret marrying your mother because then I wouldn’t have you.” His words stir anger and pain in me, but I can’t just let it go.

  “I can’t do this,” I say. It would be juvenile of me to go into the bathroom and lock the door and wait for him to go away, but I’m really close to doing just that.

  “I’ve talked to the rest of Sylas’ team. I told them that if they wanted to work for me, they could. And if they didn’t, I would let them go. They all decided to stay. I’ve given them contracts and now there’s nothing over their heads. I’m going to do the same for Sylas,” he says and I finally turn around.

  “Just like that? You’re just going to change your mind? What happened to all of the things you said the other day?” I’m not trusting this. Not until I know why.

  There are tears in his eyes and he still looks haggard. I can’t help but be touched at how destroyed he seems. It tugs at my sympathy. Despite everything he’s done, I still love him. I’ll always love him, in some capacity.

  “I knew the second I left. The second I closed the door. I’ve spent the past few days thinking and thinking and going over and over everything. I’m not the kind of man who changes his mind, Saige. I’m old and slow to learn.” He chuckles a little, but I don’t find it funny.

  “You expect me to believe you had some sort of epiphany and now you’re just going to let go of everything? I don’t believe you,” I say. I can’t figure out what his angle is, other than getting me back into his life and putting himself back in my good graces.

  “It’s not easy to admit my daughter is smarter than I am. That she’s right. I’ve made all my decisions without input from someone else. I weighed the good and the bad and acted accordingly. Everything was black and white. It wasn’t easy, but it was clear. I’ve lived my whole life this way and no one has challenged me. Not the people I hire, not my wife, no one. She used to challenge me. Marina.” The way he says her name is like a prayer. Her name is holy coming from his mouth.

  “I know my path would have been different if she had lived.” So would my path, as a result. So would Sylas’ and Lizzy’s. So many lives affected by one death. Links in a chain.

  “I can’t think about ‘what ifs’. It won’t change the path I’ve taken. But I can change now. Change where I’m going. I’m not going to stop my work. I can’t. I’ve come too far. But I am going to change the way I do things. No more secrets. No more blackmailing and torture and deals made in dark rooms. It doesn’t serve the greater good like I thought it did. You made me see that. You made me examine my life and how far I’ve come. I don’t like the man I am right now, Saige. I don’t like him.”

  My father is a good liar, but I know the exact tone of his voice when he’s telling the truth. These words are all true. He’s being honest with me. Maybe more honest than ever.

  “How can I believe you? What assurance do I have that you’re not going to go back on this?” He’s silent for a few moments and then he holds his hands out in front of himself.

  “Only my assurance. Only my word. I know it’s not worth much, but I love you and I’m making a promise to you, my daughter, and this isn’t the kind of promise I break.” He’s got me there. Every time he promised me something when I was a kid, whether it was that he’d be there for my piano recital, or that if I snuck out he would ground me, he followed through. That’s one of the reasons I always trusted him, believed what he said. Because my father never lied to me.

  But Grayson Beaumont isn’t just my father. He’s a lot of other people and those people don’t owe me promises.

  “I need to think about it,” I say. He clasps his hands together, almost as if he’s praying.

  “That’s fair. I need you to know I’m doing this for you, and I love you. I want things to be like they were between us.” They can never be that way again. He broke my trust and now we have to repair it.

  My relationship with Sylas has been the same way. We both broke the other one’s trust and we’re still working on getting to a place of security again.

  He reaches out and I let him take my hands.

  “I promise you, Saige Juliette.” After giving my hands a squeeze, he turns around and leaves. I hear him run into Sylas and Lizzy in the hallway. I can’t hear what they’re saying, but a few minutes later Sylas and Lizzy come back. Lizzy’s mouth is red and there’s also a spot on her shirt. She’s holding something out to me.

  “I brought you a popsicle,” she says. I blink a few times and it takes me a second to process her words. I look down at the object and take it from her. It’s cold.

  “She wanted to bring you one,” Sylas says in explanation.

  “Thank you,” I say, removing the wrapper from the half-melted popsicle. It’s red, the same flavor Lizzy had. I lick it and it makes my teeth hurt. Lizzy hops back on the bed and Sylas gets a movie going for her before jerking his head in direction of the bathroom. I follow him, the popsicle dripping onto my hand and running down my arm.

  Sylas closes the door of the bathroom behind us.

  “How did it go?” he asks as I toss the popsicle in the sink. I’ll clean up the evidence that I didn’t eat it so Lizzy doesn’t know.

  “I’m sure you already know because you talked to him,” I say, fixing him with a level stare. He doesn’t even try to deny it.

  “Yes, I did talk to him. He called me and said he wanted to work things out. That we could put the past behind us and move forward. He said he wanted to have a good relationship with me, with you and eventually with Lizzy. He claimed he was just desperate to get to know her and scared of losing her.” His voice is level and even, showing no emotion, no indication of how he feels.

  “And you believe him?” I ask. A sigh comes from his mouth and he pulls me into a hug, as if he needs to anchor himself to something. Me.

  “I don’t know, Saige.”

  He starts rocking me back and forth and I find comfort in him. In the way he holds me. In the way his body molds to mine. In the way our breath matches.

  “I don’t know either. I want to believe him. He promised. He’s never broken a promise to me that he made as my father. Ever.” I hear Lizzy cackling in the next room. I almost envy her. She doesn’t have to worry about any of this.

  We’re interrupted by a knock at the door.

  “What are you doing in there?” Lizzy whines. Sylas and I freeze, as if we’ve been caught doing something wrong. It breaks the tension of the moment and we both laugh softly.

  “We’ll be right out, Lizzy,” Sylas says, letting go of me.

  “What now?” I ask. He shrugs and opens the door.

  “We keep moving forward. No going back now.”

  He has a point. There is no going back. I don’t completely trust any of this, but there’s not a whole lot I can do except stay on my toes and keep my eyes open. At least I have Sylas to help me. We’re completely on the same page now.

  We watch some more movies with Lizzy and then it’s time for her to go to dinner and time for Sylas and me to leave. I expect Dad to call me and reiterate everything, but he doesn’t. He’s leaving me alone to think everything over. I’m not even going to start that process until tomorrow.

  “Do you mind if we stop at my place and get some stuff? I don’t know why I’ve been hesitant to completely move all of my things to your place,” he says.

  “It’s partially my fault,” I say, rolling down the window. It’s hot today. Summer is definitely here now. I’ve got a few weeks off before I start my summer classes. In past years I’d spend that time going to the beach, shopping with Lo and generally frittering my time away.

  This year I have Sylas and I’m looking forward to entire days spent in bed with not a stitch of clothing on either of us.

 
“I should have asked,” he says. We’re both to blame for not talking about moving in.

  When we get to his place, he asks me if I’ll come up and help him. I agree and we walk into his place. It always shocks me when I come here because it’s not the place I thought he would live.

  “I’ll be right back,” he says, going to the bedroom. I stand awkwardly in the shabby kitchen. This apartment looks abandoned. There are no knickknacks left out, no boxes of cereal, no coffee cups in the sink. It’s an anonymous place. Depressing, if I’m being honest. I walk into the living room and look at the coffee table. Yes, it’s definitely been in a fire. I rub my hand along one corner and my skin comes back stained with black dust.

  “What are you doing?” Sylas says and I whirl around so fast, I smash my hip into the couch.

  “Nothing,” I say. “I was just looking at your coffee table. If you want, we can bring it to my place. I have another spot I can put the one I have,” I say. He’s giving me a strange look as he holds a few photo albums in his hands.

  “What?” I ask.

  He jumps a little and shakes his head.

  “Nothing. Um, can you give me a hand in here?” I nod and follow him into his bedroom and back toward his closet.

  “Where are we going?” I ask.

  “We need to get that,” he says, pointing to a small safe, “into your car. If we can’t do it today, I’ll just get some of the guys to give me a hand another time.”

  The black box is deceptively small, but I know that the thing must weigh a ton.

  “We can try,” I say, feeling skeptical. Sylas grabs one end of the safe and I go for the other and we count to three and lift. It raises about three inches off the floor and that’s as far as we get.

  “No way,” I say, setting my end back down. If I try to do any more, I’m going to tear or break something. Sylas sighs and sets his end down.

  “Why don’t we empty it and then try again?” I ask. He does the combination of the safe and I look away to give him some privacy.

  He pulls a few things out and then shuts the safe again. He sets the things on the bed and then we try again. No dice.