Fucker.
When I reach my destination, I find her exactly where I thought she’d be, perched on the balcony, her long, breeze-blown hair tangling around her face. Her hands lay flat on the thick clay ledge as she gazes out at the sparkling sea. She’s dressed in white, the silky material dipping low in a V on her back, exposing every inch of her spine. Her skin golden from the sun, but it’s the sight of the delicate wings along her shoulders that gets me hard. My thirsty eyes drink her in with a mix of desire and relief.
Getting her here was the final step of countless many.
I wait for her to recognize I’m near, and within a second of me standing at the door, I see her tense in awareness. Furious, watery, dark-blue eyes find mine as I take her in, emotion clogging my throat.
We’ve come so far since that day in the parking lot in Virginia, where all I had, literally, was the shirt on my back, an apology that would never be enough, and the fight she stirred within me to win her, to keep her, to reclaim what I stole all those years ago.
And we’ve come so far.
So. Fucking. Far.
From then to now seems like a lifetime ago.
In a sense, I’ve been waiting…but as of this moment, it’s over.
In a matter of seconds, I will have done everything I set out to do. But it’s the first day of my sentence that comes to mind when I breach the doorway and charge toward her. In the flash of the seconds it takes to reach her, I re-live it all.
“I was never really insane except upon occasions when my heart was touched.”—Edgar Allan Poe
Age Thirty-Seven
Hell, day one.
The sudden weight on my chest jolts me into consciousness a second before hot, putrid breath hits my face. Opening my eyes, I’m met by the unmistakable shadow of a four-legged fucking devil.
The rabid dog stands proudly on my chest as snarl-induced saliva smacks me on the chin and his phlegmy sounding bark rings in my ears.
“Psychopathe.” Psychopath. I grumble, batting away the crazed French bulldog, whose howl only increases the more I rouse and fight him off. He doesn’t weigh much, but his bark indicates he’s got an incredible self-image.
The fucker hasn’t stopped growling at me since I walked through the front door yesterday, which Cecelia found highly amusing.
I did not.
Lifting to sit in the blackened room, I palm the empty space next to me on the bed. Beau, a namesake I truly wish she hadn’t wasted on a dog, snaps his jaws where she slept next to me just hours before, sitting on his haunches, yapping, to make sure I fucking hate him.
And mere hours after our introduction, I decide I do.
Tense due to her disappearance, I glance out the window to see it’s still dark, midnight dark.
I run a hand down my face, trepidation sneaking its way in.
I’d shown up after eight months, promised her the world, explanations, breakfast, and vowed to earn her. Instead, I got a brief tour of the house before I took a shower and passed right the fuck out. I don’t remember much after the relief of getting through the door, mingled with the hot steam relaxing me to a point I haven’t been able to reach in years.
And after all those promises I made, I failed to deliver on every single one a mere hour after I uttered them—due to exhaustion. With the adrenaline gone, I crashed and crashed hard.
What in the fuck, Tobias?
Tossing off the covers, I dress in the clothes I arrived in and slip into my boots.
Searching the room for a clock, I spot a small one that looks antique—solid gold with bells on top—sitting on one of her bookshelves and manage to make out the time.