Take Me With You(64)

“Boo!” I giggle when he launches his head and shoulders out of the water.

Sheets of water glide down his face as he swipes his hair back from his eyes. He's panting, his eyes are focused and tense, the pupils two tiny black dots submerged in ice.

I don't feed the monster by reacting with fear. Apologies and pleas would be a confession. I was just teasing him. He wouldn't come out here, so I had to find a way to get him out here. Like playful lovers.

I splash at him, as if I could diffuse his anger like flames.

“You're a fast swimmer!” I shout over the crashing water.

It doesn't work. He grabs my forearms. The false smile melts off my face.

“I know what you were doing,” he growls. I never know when he'll speak, but I do know when he does, it's rarely good.

I try to yank my hands away, but his grip is immoveable.

“I was just trying to get you to come out here and loosen up a bit,” I pout. “What was I going to do? Swim out of here naked? And what? Go back home with your child inside of me?” I snap with indignation. “I don't have a life out there anymore. Don't you get that? You, this baby, this is all I have now. You know my mother has already written me off as dead. And Carter—I can't go back to him. Not after what we've done. We…we have something I didn't have with him.”

This is just a speech, I think as I recite the words. A way for him to let his guard down around me. But I never planned these words, they come from one of those hidden boxes that I sometimes hide, even from myself. As I say them, I know even I'm not sure where the lies and the truth diverge.

“You wanted me. You dreamed about me. You told me the night you came to my house. About fucking me. Having me. Well, here I am! But you won't talk to me. You won't tell me your damned name. One minute you treat me like your girlfriend, the next you threaten me. You're the only person stopping yourself from having what you want.”

This time when I snatch my hands away, he lets me go. I swim towards the shore, amazed that my little fit worked. This time I pace the swim back, exhausted from the sprint out and the wading. I don't look back, afraid to see his reaction behind me. As I near the edge, I stop where it's just deep enough for my shoulders to peek out of the water, listening to the carving of the water behind me. I don't want to leave the pond. It's been so long since I've been outside that despite the scene I put up, I am appreciative he brought me out here.

I don't look back for him. I'm still nervous. All this time with him and I still can't anticipate his reaction. It reminds me of playing jacks as a kid, the way the little jacks bounced unpredictably along the ground. Whenever I throw something at him, I have no idea how it might fall.

I close my eyes and take a soothing inhale as he nears me. He grabs my arm and turns me around to face him. There's still anger and mistrust in his face, but it's wrestling with a softness. One that might be sick of constantly questioning my intentions. But as he pulls me closer, the darkness takes over.

He kisses me hard, biting my lip so that it smarts like a wasp's sting. I whimper, pulling back, and then tasting the blood, I do the same to him. Our lips covered in the metallic crimson, we make a silent blood oath as I wrap my legs around him. He grabs my ass and stands up, streams of water plummeting from our entwined bodies as he walks me to the shore, lowering us into the bed of smooth rocks beneath us.

He presses his weight on top of me, squeezing my face in his hand, his lips tinted with diluted blood. Through gritted teeth, his throbbing cock pressing against me, he confesses, “If you leave, I'll have to kill you, Vesp. I don't want to do that. Don't make me do it.”

He's killed me a thousand different ways. Stolen countless breaths and hopes. Slaughtered the girl who had plans to marry a nice doctor. Killed the dream of helping people for a living. Snuffed a piece of her soul by pulling her out of her little brother's life. Pillaged her pride. And out of those tiny little deaths, someone else has been born. Someone who sees that underneath his threats, there is vulnerability. He's begging me not to leave. It's not romantic or laced with syrupy sweet words. No, it's wrapped in barbed wire and cutting threats. But at its center is something he is protecting, something I have found a way to reach in and touch, even if it means being sliced and pricked along the way.

“Then tell me—show me—who you are,” I answer against his lips.

He grips my wet hair and pulls it taut so that my neck tenses. “I am—” He bites my neck, my collarbone, my shoulder. “I am—” He glides his tongue against my nipple, grazing the swollen bud with his teeth. “I am—” he works his way down my stomach running his teeth and lips against the spot that holds our creation.

My clit throbs, hoping to be next. To feel his hot mouth contrast the cool water evaporating off of the sensitive flesh.

He yanks my legs open. “I am—” he bites my inner thigh, sending shooting pain up to my center, followed by electric aftershocks.

“Tell me,” he commands, “who you are,” hovering his mouth over my pussy. Taunting with heavy breaths that match mine.

I don't know who I am anymore. I've been torn apart and pieced back together so many times, I don't recognize this pregnant woman lying naked on a shore, fucking with abandon like a forest animal.

So I say the only thing I am certain of. The only thing that is completely true at this moment. The fact I am resigned to. There are many things that are uncertain, but there is one thing that is sure.