Tease (Songs of Submission #2)(25)

“Are you all right?” he asked.

I put my finger to his lips, then I put my arms around him and rested my head on his shoulder. “I’m so sorry about all this.”

“It’s okay.”

“Tonight was supposed to be your drama.”

“I prefer it to be yours, to be honest.”

I picked my head up. “That was why he invited me so late. He wasn’t sure if he wanted me to come. And that was why it was a single space on the list and not me plus one.”

“But you tricked him.” He took a hankie out of his pocket and handed it to me. It was thick, possibly silk, and monogrammed.

“God, I feel like such a bitch leaving the way I did. What kind of person just leaves all their stuff and—” I took a hard breath, and the fat tears came every time I blinked. I dabbed my eyes with the hankie.

“Someone who’s scared,” Jonathan said. “Come on, he made that thing from his perspective. You didn’t expect it to be fair, did you?”

I shrugged and dabbed, trying to get control of myself and not lose too much makeup. I sniffed hard.

“I just walked out on him,” I said. “I had no closure. I know the way I did it was the only way, because I could be strong once and leave, but he had a way of making me forgive him. We would have been the couple that was always half broken up, and I knew I couldn’t be strong another hundred times.”

I dabbed the insides of my eyes with the hankie, but I didn’t want to get mascara on it, so the wet blobs stayed on the outside of my eyes. Jonathan stroked the back of my neck and waited patiently.

“I don’t know what this will make you think of me,” I said.

“That any man who’s with you better pay attention, or they’ll find you gone.”

A short exhale of a laugh shot out of me. I shook my head. If I wanted more from Jonathan than a casual f**k, my chances of getting there had just shrunk to nil. Who would want to be with such a psychopath?

“See, I was keeping you on a need to know basis,” I said. “And now you know too much about me. I’m going to have to kill you. Sorry.”

I looked up from the hankie. He was gazing at my mouth as if it was the most interesting body part he’d ever seen. He touched my lower lip with his thumb and brought it down to my chin.

“I know you’re trying to be guarded, but you’re too real for that.” He brushed my lips with his fingertips, and I kissed them. “I think that piece up there wasn’t bullshit. I think it’s the most unkind thing I’ve ever seen. And to sell off the pieces to a stranger is a dirty trick.”

I looked back down at my lap, where my hands sat. My wrists were covered in bangly bracelets to hide the bruises. I felt beat up.

“Thanks for listening,” I said. “This can’t be attractive.”

“If you have never seen beauty in a moment of suffering, you have never seen beauty at all.”

“Who said that?”

“Some German poet. Now, blow your nose. The sniffling’s making me crazy.”

I held up the hankie. “I can’t. It’s too nice.” I sniffed again.

“Are you serious?” He snapped the hankie from me and draped it over his palm. He put it over my nose. It had his dry, foggy smell. “Blow,” he said.

I looked at him over the silk fabric, and he looked back at me, tilting his head as if waiting impatiently for me to blow my nose into his hankie-covered palm. The corners of his mouth curled ever so slightly. He was trying not to laugh.

“Come on now,” he said, squeezing my nose.

I couldn’t hold it in. I burst out laughing.

He laughed too, even as he said, “Blow already.”

“I can’t when I’m laughing.”

“Stop laughing then.” He was a poor salesman for not laughing, of course, as he was mid-crackup.

I took the hankie back and turned away from him. I blew my nose right into that really nice, embroidered accessory, folded it, and blew again before turning back to him. He leaned back on the bench, his arm around the top of it. Streetlamps reflected blue on his cheeks and the tips of his hair. His finger brushed my bare shoulder.

“Do you want this back?” I said, trying not to laugh all over again.

“Keep it.”

CHAPTER 15

I waited in the back seat as Jonathan spoke to Lil outside. I wanted to see him naked again. I wanted his c**k and his lips. I wanted his hands on my hurting parts. But I couldn’t stop thinking about Kevin. After I’d left him, I thought he’d forgotten about me. I sometimes thought he might have been hurt, but I took only gleeful satisfaction in that thought. He had always been the strong and confident one, and I was the doormat.

Jonathan slid in across from me, and Lil slammed the door after him.

“You going to tell me to spread my legs?” I asked.

“I’ll get to it.”

He didn’t. He just looked at me. My knees were pressed together. My ni**les were hardened from the fierce air conditioning, and my hands lay folded on my lap. Once he was done with my body, he looked at my face.

The car moved, and the view of the parking lot turned into L.A. at night.

“I want to do things to you,” Jonathan said, “but you’re not in any physical condition for that right now.”