“Ready, Miss?” the driver asks, climbing out of the car. He puts my bags in the trunk. I watch, numb. I wonder if this is how my mother felt when she left us.
I’m in the car, but I don’t remember climbing in. I told the driver to just drive. I have nowhere to go, no direction, just like I have no idea what to do with my freedom now that I’ve gotten it. The last thing on earth I feel like doing is partying. I just want to be home, curled up with King on the couch. I always imagined Mom was happy, full of hopes and dreams, a lifetime of promise ahead as she drove away, waving and smiling, to her new shiny life of fame and excitement. How could she do it? And not just to her husband, but her daughter?
“Where to, Miss?” the driver asks. His eyes in the mirror are sympathetic. We’ve been driving around for a while, I don’t know how long. I only know that I’m never going to do what my mother did. Not to anyone.
This is what I choose to do with my freedom.
I meet the driver’s eyes in the mirror. “Take me home.”
*
When I hear the jangling of keys in the door, I don’t know what to do with myself. I have the ridiculous notion to pose somewhere, like he’s going to walk in and forget everything if the house looks good. I shove the thought away just as the door opens and my husband walks in. He stops short, blinking at me like I must be a mirage.
“I thought I told you to leave,” he says, turning to push the door closed behind him.
Suddenly I wish I had posed somewhere. Better than standing awkwardly in the middle of the room, clasping my hands in front of me like I’m waiting for his fucking approval.
“I did,” I say. “But I guess you were right. I always come back to you.”
He sighs and sets down his leather bag, the one that looks professional, but if I had to guess, probably contains a Glock, a few extra magazines, some rope for tying up uncooperative suspects, and maybe a handful of instruments of torture thrown in for good measure.
“I’m going to clean up,” he says, snagging his bag and heading to the bedroom. A minute later, I hear the shower running. He always showers when he gets home, even when I can’t see blood on him. It must suck for a guy like him to have to hurt people all day. He’s not like Dad’s men, who joke about it over dinner. He’ll get there, but he’s not desensitized to violence yet. I’m probably more callous than he is, for fuck’s sake.
Dinner’s not supposed to arrive for an hour, so I go into the bedroom and sit on my side of the bed and lean back on the pillows, waiting for him to come out. A few minutes later, he emerges trailing wisps of steam, wearing nothing but the water droplets clinging to his skin and a towel wrapped around his hips, hanging low enough that I can see the V of muscle leading downward.
I swallow hard, trying not to ogle him. But god, he’s so beautiful. I’m not even an artist, and he makes me want to draw him. All those angles and long lines. Was Michelangelo gay? Because it would be a damn shame to look at something like that and not see how sexy it is. Or maybe that would be a good thing. I don’t know how long it took him to carve David, but it would probably be the longest hard-on in history.
King goes to the dresser and opens the drawer to get his boxers. He pauses, staring down at the ring he left there this morning.
“I know what it’s like to be left,” I say. “I know what it does to a person. If you want out of this, you’re going to have to be the one who leaves. I’m not going to do that to you.”
He turns back, his hand on the knot in his towel. I watch a drop of water slowly rolling down his abs, down the chiseled muscles that make up the V between his hips, toward the edge of the towel. I gulp and drag my eyes up to his. “I wasn’t leaving you,” he says quietly, a frown knitting his brow. “I was protecting you.”
“I know all about people leaving to protect me, too,” I say. “That doesn’t make it easier.”
He just watches me a second, his expression inscrutable. “I didn’t think of it that way,” he says at last. “I wasn’t trying to be just another person who left you. I just thought it was better for you to have someone more… Self-disciplined.”
I snort. “More than you?”
“I’ve been a terrible husband to you.”
“I probably deserved it,” I say. “I was a total bitch to you. Maybe I do that because people don’t stick around, y’know? Like, I push them away, testing them, because I know eventually they’ll leave. No one stays.”
King’s expression turns pained, and he picks up the ring and comes over to sink onto the other side of the bed. “Eliza… Fuck. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay.”
He reaches for me, pulling me to him. I curl against him, relieved for the contact. That surprises me. I’ve gotten used to his touch in such a short time. But last night, when he didn’t hold me, I missed him all night.
“It’s not okay,” he says quietly. “If this is what you really want, I’ll stay. But I want you to make sure it is.Am I really good enough, or is this just another one of your self-destructive tendencies, like the drinking?”
“No,” I say, opening his hand and taking out the ring. I slide it back onto his finger, where it belongs. He pulls me into his arms again, and I hold onto him, feeling the damp cool of his skin above the delicious heat of his body underneath. “I think it’s the exact opposite of that.”
He’s wrong about not being good for me. This is exactly what I need. Someone who makes me want to be better, to get better. Someone who makes me feel scary things and still want to go on, for him and for me, too. I deserve to feel good. I deserve to enjoy my own body. I deserve the same pleasure other people feel when touched.
I’ve tried for so long to push those feelings down, to shut off the sensations of my body. But now I’m mad. I’m mad that the chance to feel uncomplicated pleasure was taken from me. Yes, I want to give myself to King, but more than that, I want it for myself. It’s not fair that the most basic, simple pleasures fill me with terror. I’m ready to change that.
I twist around in King’s arms, throwing my leg over him and straddling his hips so he has to brace himself to stay sitting, his palms flat on the mattress and his legs extended along the side of the bed where he sleeps. He looks up at me, his expression guarded, but I don’t hesitate. I take his face between my hands and kiss him hard. He reacts, but his kiss is tentative, careful. He keeps his hands on the bed instead of touching me. But I touch him. I run my hands over the hard, knotted muscles of his shoulders, careful to avoid the bandaged area, and down the lean, taut muscles of his biceps, his forearms, and onto his sides. His skin is hot and damp, and his body shivers against my cool hands as they run over his skin.