Thor’s lips spread, showing his teeth.
“Wanna go for a drink?” he says.
She wants to say ‘no’. She has a load on her mind. But then she thinks of Brian and Adie together. In bed. Fucking for the last two days – for better or for worse.
She straightens her mouth and says, “Why not?”
3
Delilah Faulkner gazes at the sleeping Brian. There is a slow churn of emotions in her head every time she thinks of him, which is extremely often in the last few years.
She has run the gamut from blinding rage – rage so potent that it has eaten her from inside out, so much so that she had to seek therapy for it – to curious bliss. Like right now. So much of what she has become is the direct result of what this man did to her. Until she doesn’t even remember the way she used to be anymore.
This man.
And what a man he is. A pang of envy stabs her heart when she thinks of Samantha Fox. What does he see in that woman? She will never know. And here he is, ‘sacrificing’ himself for that perky brunette’s sake. There’s that, and also the pervading guilt that he ‘owes’ her, Adele Jankovic, something major. Which of course he does.
The fact that Brian is here is a new development. She has never thought it would come to this. But it is a very welcome development.
She studies his immobile form.
God, but he’s so beautiful. Too bad his eyes are shut now because they are his most beautiful feature. But when they are open, she doesn’t like the look in them when he gazes upon her. More often than not, they have been filled with reproach and regret. She even catches him glancing sidelong at her with a funny look on his face. But when she faces him head on, he turns away quickly.
He hasn’t changed all that much from college. Not really. But then, it hasn’t been that long. His face is still unlined and smooth. His lips curved and sensuous. His jaw strong and firm. She can trace the outlines of that face and the graceful curvature of his neck forever.
She leans closer and breathes in the scent of him. He smells of sweat and soap and water. She takes in his slowly moving chest. If she lays her ear upon his heart, she knows she will hear its steady, insistent beat. But she doesn’t want to wake him up. He looks too peaceful this way.
Of course, a lot of his turmoil when he is awake has to do with her. She allows herself a small smile of satisfaction. Then the corners of her mouth droop. There was a time she would have done anything for him. But now, she is on the precipice of either wanting to destroy him or preserve him forever – like a butterfly pinned in her private collection.
Like one of his surreptitious photos, tacked up on her corkboard in her room of secrets.
She watches him for a long, long while. Then she moves away from the bed. Quietly, very quietly, so as not to disturb him. She takes out a camera from her chest of drawers – all done with the minimum of noise.
She returns to the bed and slowly takes the covers away from his nude body, revealing the silky planes of his abs and musculature. She observes the tiny trail of hair that leads from his navel to his pubic bush, which sprouts like a tangle of fertile grass above his wonderful, thick c**k – which is now dormant. Unfortunately.
She aims the digital camera at his lush form and clicks. And clicks some more.
He still doesn’t stir.
When she is satisfied that she has enough for her collection, she puts the camera away. She will scan those photos in later. And stare at them for a long time. She doesn’t know which version she prefers – the actual man himself, beautiful and alluring; or the image she has so perfectly crafted of him in her bountiful private collection.
Still, he was a positive influence in her life. He made her understand, all those years ago, that she could be beautiful. She could be loved. Even if the whole thing was a shameful joke at her expense. He had unlocked a hidden portion of her that she didn’t know existed.
Yes, the fallout was grim, but it wasn’t completely because of what he did. She did try to kill herself, but that was because all the things in her life were going terribly wrong. By that time, she had been on drugs. Booze. Whatever she could get her hands on.
But everything did have a silver lining. Because something snapped in her somewhere along the line. Something that reinforced in her the will to survive – the iron will to make something of herself so that she would show him. So she worked hard and studied and graduated . . . finally. Got herself a good job and f**king excelled in it. Then saved up enough to reinvent herself literally from head to toe.
That way, she was casting aside that old mold of herself. Embracing a shiny, new version. A stronger, more robotic model without the old insecurities and frailties that almost led her to end her life.
It worked.
So far.
But some part of her cannot maintain this cruel clinical detachment. She still feels something stirring for this impossibly gorgeous man, sleeping like an innocent babe in the woods.
He will not be hers for much longer.
Unless she wills it.
It’s a heady feeling. This sudden power that she holds over this man and everything in his life.
Is she sorry for she did what she did to him? No. At least, that is what she tells herself. She hated him and loved him at the same time. There isn’t a day that passes by that he hasn’t occupied her thoughts and invaded her dreams. It’s as if he made her – fleshed her out as surely as if he were her Maker.
And now he is her puppet. Meek and submissive. Not quite, but she would like to tell herself that. Brian would never be meek and submissive. He does everything she tells him to with a hidden resentment, a slow boil that would come to the surface sooner or later. And knowing he is bending to her will – letting her dominate him – because of this perky copper-haired woman, her rival, is beyond maddening.
She runs a lacquer-tipped finger down the curl of his cock. He has a gorgeous, gorgeous cock. So thick and firm and smooth. She loves the satiny feel of its head – the dome-shaped curvature of it. The little aperture at its tip that she can sink the tip of her tongue into. The long, juicy shaft of it with the plump vein running on top. She can just look at it forever.
She takes it in her hand and squeezes the head. The delicious piece of flesh immediately fills with warm blood. Brian stirs, sighing in his sleep. He’s a creature of tactile sensation, she knows, by the way his c**k is rapidly lengthening and broadening. His c**k has a mind of its own, and if it decides to wake up, it has nothing to do with who she is and everything to do with the fact that a hand – any hand – is handling it.