As my gasps died down to soft breaths, he pressed his body to mine again, moving slowly, teasing that overexcited spot. I let out a long sigh, feeling so tight in all my limbs, but most deliciously, where he and I connected.
“Ara.” He slid his hand behind my back, cradling my spine as he rolled me up, gently tucking my face against his chest. “I wish I could hold onto you like this forever.”
And I felt so loved, so safe in his arms that I wished it, too.
I angled my chin to his chest and kissed him where his heart should be beating, breathing deep his spicy cologne and the delicious orange-chocolate of warm blood through his veins, then wrapped both my arms and legs around him, squeezing his body tightly. I never wanted to let go. He was a part of me now, and always would be. I wasn't sure it meant I had come to terms with how I felt, but I was certainly face to face with it, unable to deny it any longer.
“Jase?”
“Yeah?” He shuffled back, slipping out of me.
“This won't make it okay.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean…I love him. I really do, and I…I can see his face. I can see the way he’ll look at me when I tell him the baby’s yours.” I shut my eyes around that thought.
“Shh.” He kissed the bone just above my eye. “It’s okay. We’ll tell him together.”
“No.” My eyes shot open. “We can't. He needs to be free to have an emotional reaction—he can't do that with you there—with anyone else there.”
“It’s his emotional reaction I'm worried about, Ara.”
“He won't hurt me, Jase.”
“Then you don't know him very well.”
“Or maybe you don't.” I shoved him off me and stood up. “Stop always thinking the worst of him.”
“Ara, I’ve seen it. I've goddamn well seen him hit a girl before.” He stood up, too, following me. “Why won't you listen to me?”
“Because it’s irrelevant, Jason.”
“Why?”
“Look what we did.” I pointed back to my bed. “We betrayed him. We…we loved each other in his bed. He’d be right to hurt me for that, Jason.”
He ran forward and gently grabbed my arm. “No, Ara. He wouldn't.”
“Just—get off me.” I shrugged away. “I don't want this anymore. I don't want the confusion.”
“It’s not confusing, Ara. You love me. You said it yourself.”
I shoved him away again. “No. I don't want this! I don't want to love you!” I screamed.
He stood taller, the centre of his being turning to ice, breath by painful breath. His arms fell to his sides, his eyes glazed. “Ara, I can't read you right now,” his voice shook. “I need you to tell me you don't really mean that.”
I sunk down, my head in my hands, tears falling over my knees and onto the carpet. “I don't know what I feel. I just need you to go. I just need to be alone.”
“Sure. Okay, I’ll uh—” His words stopped.
I peeked through my fingertips and saw his long toes twitch then shift back, step by step, as he walked away, slipping into his jeans, closing my bedroom door a second later.
A sharp ache struck the core of my wretched heart then; I folded into a ball, crying aloud until, as the sun showed a lighter horizon in the distance, the silent sobs of my soul dying rang out into the emptiness around me.
Agony finally turned clarity to fog, and everything from my heart deep went numb.
The morning felt new, quiet, dark. I thought of Mike, down the other end of the manor, probably unable to sleep because of our fight, and wondered what he’d think to know what I just did.
Right now, before the sun rose, no one had a clue, and I could still live in the dream-like state where nothing bad ever truly happened—where everything I ever did wrong was just a nightmare.
But it wasn't a nightmare—not this time. I slept with Jason to keep David, and the regret I felt wasn’t just for the betrayal of my wedding vows; it was because I’d sent Jason to his death, and I wasn’t sure I could live with that—not after having loved him that way—felt him love me back like no other man ever had…or would.
I might have saved David, but I’d revealed an inner truth that was worse than betrayal.
I shut my eyes, clasping my hands under my chin, and whispered to that One Entity out there, somewhere past the stars, beyond Dark Matter and planet Jupiter. I needed to be heard; I needed to take back what I did. “Please don't let me be pregnant to Jason. Please, please,” I repeated over and over again. But my words became weak by the time the sun crawled along my naked body, and I sat at the head of my bed, my knees tucked up, thumb against my lips, staring into the truth of the life I just destroyed.
There was no wind outside, no sound; the ocean was still and the birds…all gone. I deserved no hint of life this morning; deep inside, I was a disgusting soul—gifted with beauty, love, opportunity, and I wasted it.
“Forgive me,” I whispered.
A white nightdress was the only thing covering my lustful, sinning body as I stumbled through the halls toward the gates of release. Freedom. I needed to feel the wind on my face and the sun on my skin to know I was still alive—that I wasn't dragged away by the reapers in the middle of the night.
I walked through the forest at dawn, praying it would trap me, praying something evil would come to get me. But it let me pass, led me to the field—to the place this all began.
Clouds rolled over the sun as I cried my eyes to blindness, fumbling through the long, itching grasses; a storm was on the way, and I wanted it to come, wanted it to electrify the skies with its power and strike me down where I stood.
But it wouldn’t, because I was immortal—no longer so blessed to be gifted with death. It was something I’d have to force upon myself—take myself apart so that I never opened my eyes again. I couldn't go back to that life. Everything was ruined. What once was innocent now was tainted so black it could never be loved again. David saw a pure soul in me, but in truth, that was the lie. There was no escape from the pain—no escape from the truth that I wanted Jason as badly as I wanted David—in equal measures. The only release I could expect would be a release from life—into an eternity of Hell.
I had no memory of taking the steps to the lighthouse roof, no memory of climbing up and finding my way to the edge, but as I stood atop it, the wind whipped its wild fury against my nightdress, and my hair lashed out behind me, circling back in my face and around my neck.