Текст книги "Crave"

Автор книги: B.J. Harvey

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Текущая страница: 12 (всего у книги 17 страниц)

Every time I close my eyes I’m confronted with flashes of earlier tonight.

Flashes of her.

I can see her pale, clammy body beneath me. My shaking hands pressing into her chest as I struggled to compose myself enough to help her.

Her shallow breaths, her slack expressionless face so unlike Lucia’s normally full, animated smile.

The emergency operator’s flat, disapproving voice in my ear telling me to make sure she was breathing and to shift her into the recovery position.

The angry look of the paramedics as they entered the room and asked me to move away from Lucia’s barely clothed body.

I hated seeing them touch her, them seeing her like that. She didn’t have a choice in that moment. That was my fault. That is all on me.

I’m broken. Ripped raw, my wounds open wide for the world to see.

She was wheeled out on a gurney leaving me with nothing to do but sit and watch, frozen in place across the room.

The police tried to talk to me about what had happened, advising that they’d need a statement from me as a precautionary measure, telling me that it’s unlikely I’d face charges because it was a consensual act between two adults—something they would need to confirm with Lucia when she had recovered. They promised discretion and privacy, but I couldn’t escape their judgment, their eyes filled with curious bewilderment. I could only nod absentmindedly, my thoughts stuck on the sickly pallor of Lucia’s skin, the warmth and radiance gone. Her lack of consciousness. Her eyes not opening at all while I waited for the paramedics to arrive.

I can’t even remember the last words I said to her.

“I trust you; I love you. Take what you need, Cal.”

My chest feels as if there’s a lead weight pressing against it, a fist wrapped tight around my heart continuously constricting as the minutes tick by.

How is Lucia now? Is she breathing? Is she awake? Is she even alive?

I could never live with myself if she doesn’t recover.

My moment of weakness was an ultimate moment of selfishness. I should never have put my own need for release ahead of everything else. I lost myself in the moment and hurt her, a fate worse than death to me.

I’m the ultimate sinner. A conceited man who took what was offered without any forethought given to the risk or the wide-reaching effects of the act itself.

I’m the man I fought hard never to be, but was too weak to stop myself from becoming.

It feels as if I’m having an out-of-body experience. I know there are four police officers walking around my house. I know that there is one sitting across from me, trying to talk to me, the muted buzz of his voice bouncing right off my ears as I stare at my large wooden grandfather clock. Time moves so slowly I can almost imagine that this is a dream; a horrific nightmare I wish I could wake myself up from.

The detective started questioning me as soon as the ambulance took Luce to the hospital. He told me they would not be arresting me, despite me arguing for them to do exactly that.

I deserve to be locked up for what I have done. Turning my head, I watch a blond policewoman looking around my living area before turning toward the balcony and freezing in place as she takes in my view of the bay.

I consider begging her again, demanding that they cuff me and take me away. Lock me up with criminals, with other monsters like me.

“We’re going to leave you now, Mr. Alexander. Is there someone you can call? Someone to come stay with you?” the detective says to me, his expression full of concern. “You’re in shock and it’s only at your own determined request that we’re leaving you here alone. I’d prefer to stay until you can have someone come over to be with you.”

“Yes,” I reply, not seeing anything other than black and white. Good and bad. Lucia the saint and me the unworthy sinner who deserves to continually relive this painful memory alone.

“We’ll see ourselves out, Mr. Alexander,” the detective announces and joins the other officers as they walk out the front door, closing it behind them.

There is only one person I can call.

I stand and walk to the kitchen, grabbing my phone and swiping my fingers over the screen.

“Grant?” My voice cracks as I say his name.

“Cal? What’s happened?”

“I hurt her,” I rasp out as I lose the loose grip on the overwhelming emotions I’ve been burying for the past hour.

“What?”

“Can you come to my house,” I reply hoarsely, my voice tight with unshed emotion.

“I’m there. Give me fifteen and I’m there, Cal. Just sit down and I’ll be there, okay?” His voice is full of concern. I can tell he’s worried about me, worried about her. “Where is she, Cal?”

“I don’t know. The paramedics took her.”

“Alright. We’ll find out and then we’ll go see her.”

“No,” I state determinedly. “She’s better off without me.”

“Cal, you—”

“No!” I shout, and my rough voice echoes around the house. “Just come over, Grant. Please.”

He sighs and resignedly agrees. “Okay. I’m on my way. I’ll let myself in.”

I end the call. There’s nothing more to say.

I can no longer hide behind ignorance. I’m the monster who wrapped his fingers around a woman’s throat, abusing her trust and experiencing the most intense and satisfying climax I’ve ever had while I choked the life out of her.

I walk to the drinks trolley to get myself a drink. My hand shakes as I tip the bottle toward the glass. All the alcohol in the world won’t rewind the last twelve hours. I’d give anything . . . anything to take it all back, to stop the pain and suffering Lucia has been dealt by my hands.

Making my way outside, I sit down in my armchair, my body numb and unresponsive. The scent of her perfume lingers faintly on my skin, driving the knife in my gut deeper. Lifting the glass to my mouth I gulp half the drink in two large gulps, welcoming the acid-like burn of the liquor down my throat.

The euphoria escapes me as the horror of what I’ve just done sinks in, encasing my body with its torture. In a selfish act of dissolute need, I lost all semblance of dignity and control at the expense of the woman who trusted me. She gave me a gift, which I repaid by neglecting to give her the attention she deserved more than anything in that moment.

How can I ever come back from this? How will Lucia bear to be near me, to even look at me with those same wide green eyes that were lifeless today?

What have I done? Why did I do it? Why didn’t I watch her more closely?

My mind races as endless questions come to me in a never-ending loop that I will probably never come close to answering. If I had the answers, I would not be where I am and Lucia would still be close enough to touch. Pain continues to spear through me, but now it’s edged with overwhelming regret for the careless actions that have the power to ruin the most important things in my life.

The very life I’ve built for myself . . . everything I’ve ever done now waits in purgatory, all caused by a lack of focus at a time when my most concentrated attention was needed. If I lose her because of this, it’ll be nothing less than what I deserve.

I need her breathing. I need her alive.

Without her, I have nothing. Without her, I am nothing.

Why couldn’t I resist the temptation she so willingly offered to me?

The craving, the need to follow my instincts drove me to wrap my strong fingers around her frail throat, to squeeze the very life out of her as I catapulted headfirst into my basal calling to release myself inside of her. I should never have touched her with my emotions, my thoughts, everything so unrestrained and uncontrollable.

How did I lose myself?

How did I fall so far as to hurt the woman I love?

Grant lets himself in twenty minutes later, and when he walks out onto the balcony, I lift my head and see the stress and concern wearing on his normally calm and held-together composition.

“Tell me what happened?”

“I hurt her,” I say, my voice cracking as I verbalize my worst-held fear that is now a horrific reality.

“How, Cal? You could never hurt Luce. You don’t have that in you.”

An empty, meaningless laugh escapes me. “Apparently I do when I’m being followed, exposed, harassed and am potentially responsible for two innocent men dying. It seems I can physically hurt someone I love.”

“Was she . . . ?”

I stand and rush toward him, shoving my palms against his chest angrily. “I don’t know!” My eyes widen in shock when I realize what I’ve done. “Shit! I—”

He’s not put off and continues to push me for answers. “Did you . . . mean to hurt her?”

“Fuck no,” I spit out. “I lost control. I wasn’t careful; we weren’t careful. Things got out of hand and I hurt her. That’s it. The end.” I walk backwards and collapse down into the chair and cradle my head in my hands, my shoulders slumping in defeat. “I didn’t ever want to do it. Never. I knew this would happen. I gave in. All I could focus on was getting release, something, anything to ease the tension.”

“Fuck,” he says under his breath and moves to the chair next to me. “You . . .”

“Yeah.”

“How? You said you’d never do it. Ever.”

“I needed it. Luce sensed that; she knew I was holding back, has probably known for a while. I didn’t need anything more than her. I convinced myself that anything with her was everything I’d ever need.”

Silence stretches between us, not awkward, not stilted, just a common understanding that I need time to compose myself before continuing with a hoarse whisper. “She put my hand on her throat. I was too far gone to give her the care she needed. Too lost in my darkest fantasy coming to fruition than in watching her.” I take a deep breath and slowly exhale before telling him the worst. “She must’ve lost consciousness and when I realized, it was too late. I called nine-one-one, and the paramedics were here with ten minutes. By then her breathing was shallow and she was pale . . . so fucking pale . . .”

“Cal?” Grant asks, and I shake my head in an ineffectual attempt to clear my mind of Luce’s face, void of all expression and signs of life. My heart stutters in my chest as I relive the terror I felt in that moment all over again.

“Did the police want to charge you?”

Lifting my head, I meet his eyes. “No. They wouldn’t.” I take a breath but my throat grows impossibly tight. “I couldn’t live with myself if she . . .”

He tenses his jaw and spears me with a look that means business. “Go clean yourself up because you’re a goddamn mess, then we’ll go to the hospital.”

I open my mouth to protest, but he cuts me off before I can utter even a single word.

“Where did they take her?” he asks.

“I don’t know.” I run my fingers through my hair, the lump in my throat growing again. My eyes mist over. “I don’t know anything anymore and that terrifies me. The thought of losing her terrifies me even more.”

“Then let’s get some answers for you.”

When I’d showered and gotten dressed, Grant was waiting for me in the kitchen. “I made some calls. She’s at UCSF Medical Center,” he says.

“Look, this isn’t a good idea—”

“Alexander. Get your ass in my car. We’re going to see her,” he commanded, his eyes narrowed and giving me no other option but to do what he said.

Once we got to the hospital, Grant was able to find out she was no longer in the ER and was now in a room upstairs. When we walk down the corridor toward her room, we’re confronted with a stony-faced Gino.

“Tell me you aren’t here to see my sister—the one you put in a hospital bed,” Gino shouts the moment he sees us. Now that I’m only twenty feet and a wall away from her, my stomach knots tight with the overwhelming guilt that has been threatening to pull me under ever since it happened. Shame washes over me once more as I face Luce’s staunchly protective and understandably irate brother. The weight of what I’ve done to her presses deeper onto me, the apologetic words I should say—that I need to say—choking in my throat at the sight of his blazing eyes. “Yeah, she told me what happened. And you disgust me. How can you call yourself a man?” he spits out before Grant steps in.

“Gino,” Grant says, reading the situation and stepping up to diffuse anything before it starts. “How is she doing?” he asks in a steady and typically calm voice.

Grant has always been the infallible one out of the two of us. Whereas I think and then act, but never normally give any indication if I’m affected or not, Grant is the mediator, the placator, the one who steadies the ship until such time as I’ve decided on the course of action to take.

The problem is I don’t have the strength to fight anything anymore. A lot of the fortitude I’ve been able to exhibit lately is owed to Lucia. There is a lot to be said for only being as strong as the woman by your side. She is the rebar holding my very foundation together at a time when the base on which we’re set on continually shifts.

“She is alive, no thanks to you!” Gino spears me with a deadly stare, his body tight with unleashed fury directed firmly at my feet.

“Gino, I—”

“No, I don’t wanna hear any of your lame-ass excuses as to why you felt you had the right to wrap your damn hands around my sister’s throat and almost kill her.” He advances toward me, and I brace for whatever is coming my way. “You think because you have money, because you’re this hot-shot playboy, you can play whatever fucked up kinky games you like and you’re invincible?” Another two steps forward bring him to within five feet of me.

Grant holds steady beside me but I don’t tear my eyes away from Gino even for a moment. My hands are balled into fists at my side, the air I breathe thick with tension. But still, I stand strong.

“You think you can use and abuse my sister and still hold your head up high?” Now Gino is two feet away, his chest heaving, his eyes wide and wild. His nostrils flare as he spits out every thunderous word. The noise of the hospital ward dims in comparison to the scene playing out in the corridor. I don’t miss the loud whispers asking if it is me, or another woman telling someone to get their phone out just in case.

“We have an audience, gentlemen,” Grant mutters under his breath.

“We just . . . I wanted to see for myself that she is okay. I won’t stay long; I just want to say—”

I don’t finish the sentence because I’m blindsided by Gino’s fist slamming into my jaw, a brutal upper-cut that he follows up with a left hand punch to my stomach. One more blow lands on my right cheek below my eye before Grant is able to react and step between us, pushing Gino back with both hands on his shoulders and keeping us apart.

“Call security!” A woman behind me calls.

Bent over in pain, I raise my hand into a thumbs-up sign, hoping to stop anything from escalating. Lucia deserves the opportunity to recover in peace. I at least owe her that decency.

“Cal?” Grant calls, and I look up to see him still holding Gino back, but he’s frowning over his shoulder at me.

“I’m okay,” I reply in a rough whisper, the pulsing pain in my stomach slowly lessening. My face, however? It’s another story.

“We need to get you checked out. Make sure nothing’s broken.”

“Doesn’t matter, Grant.” I lean against the wall and drop my head back in undeniable defeat. I knew I shouldn’t have tried to see her. I’ll be lucky if she ever gives me the opportunity to apologize for my unforgivable and disgusting behavior.

The loud clap of footsteps on the vinyl floor grabs my attention, and I turn to see two security guards running toward us. “There a problem here?” a tall, heavily built, uniformed man asks us, wisely stepping between us.

“I want these men removed from the hospital. He,” Gino says, pointing to me, “is the one that put my sister in a hospital bed. I want him banned from coming anywhere near her.”

The guard looks me over and then back to where Gino and Grant are standing, quietly assessing the situation.

“That sounds like a police matter, sir. But for now, I’ll have to respect the man’s wishes and ask you two gentlemen to leave.”

I nod agreeably, watching Grant talk quietly to Gino before clapping his shoulder and walking over to me.

“Everything’s fine here. We’ll leave,” Grant says to the security guard, who just grunts in agreement and walks away. “Let’s go, Cal. We’ll see Lucia once she’s been discharged.”

Hearing him say the words, unwittingly letting me know that she is going to be okay, my knees buckle, and I slide to the floor. Resting my palms on my forehead, my arms on my bent knees, I close my eyes and let everything wash over me, wave after wave, thought after thought. Tears stings my eyes as the last string holding me together unravels.

Who is this monster that I have become? How can I call myself a man when at my weakest moment, I failed to protect Lucia from myself, the very person she should never experience danger from?

Grant bends down beside me. “Cal . . . not here. You don’t want to do this here. I’ll get you home and you can let go there,” he whispers.

“Fuck,” I spit out, stamping my shoe against the floor. “I’m done. I’m so fucking done.” But I stay sitting there, leaning my back against the hospital corridor wall and shielding myself from showing every emotion that’s now tearing me apart.

Grant sits down beside me, but says nothing more. It’s as if he knows that I’m incapable of doing anything else in this moment. The only thing my mind is allowing me to do is slam ass-first into rock bottom and keep me here until I have the strength to push my way up again.

If only I believed it was even possible to do so.

“Cal?” I hear beside me in a quiet, hoarse whisper. The voice is so faint and soft, if it wasn’t for the unmistakable tone of her voice, I doubt it would have registered.

For what feels like hours I’ve been sitting in this same spot, my body stuck in place, unable and unwilling to move away.

Grant went to get us coffee, saying he wouldn’t be long. It can’t have been that long ago but I know he hasn’t come back yet.

Her hand touches my forearm and I take in the warmth of her body that’s now gently leaning into mine. Jerking back in surprise, my head snaps up, and there she is. Her dark hair is in loose, unruly waves over her shoulders. Her eyes are red and swollen, yet so soft and full of concern as they pin me in place. I’ve been contemplating whether I would ever get to look into them like this again, whether I would get to feel the warmth of her body so close to mine.

“God, Luce. I’m so, so sorry,” I rasp, before burying my head in the crook of her shoulder and finally letting the tears I’ve been fighting so hard to hold back go.

She leans up on her knees and wraps her arms around me, taking my weight and pulling me down against her. “I’ve been waiting for you to come in and see me.”

Her hand moves to cover mine, her fingers squeezing as she pulls it into her lap.

“Gino, he—” I start to say before she cuts me off.

“My brother had no right to ask you to leave, and definitely no fucking right to attack you. I sent him home as soon as he told me what he’d done.”

“He’s just doing what I failed to do,” I explain.

“And what’s that? Annoy me?” she replies with a small, hollow smile.

Pulling back to look at her, I’m filled with a compelling need to apologize and ask for the impossible forgiveness I do not deserve.

“Luce, I can’t believe I lost control like that. I’m so sor—”

I stop the instant my eyes fall to her throat. Her beautiful, flawless skin marred with row upon row of purple and red bruises surround her neck. I lift my hand to lightly touch her, as if to soothe the tenderness and erase the pain, but when her breath catches and she flinches—just barely, but I don’t miss it—I instantly pull back, shifting my body away from her. Any warmth I felt before disappears, leaving me with that same chill that’s been emanating from inside of me since the moment I realized I’d gone too far.

“Cal, it looks worse than it is. I’m going to be okay.” She leans closer. “The doctors have said there will be no lasting effects. My body went into self-protect mode. I will never blame you, do you understand? Never.”

The feeling behind her words fails to penetrate the hard shell of self-contempt I’ve erected around myself again.

Needing distance, I stand up hastily. She follows and tries to get close again but I move away, putting my arm up to stop her, needing to put as much distance as possible between us.

“Lucia, you need to forget about me, about us. I don’t deserve you. I never have, and I never will. You’ll always remember me doing this to you—losing control and hurting you. I didn’t mean for this to happen and I had vowed to myself to never expose this side of myself to you. I lost control. I ended up hurting you and that is something that I will never be able to forgive myself for.”

Tears fall down her cheeks and my hand itches to lift up, to wipe them away, to comfort her and erase everything that I’ve done. My body needs to move in close, cup her cheeks, and soothe her tears with a soft gentle, full-of-feeling kiss.

But that will never be allowed to happen again. I can’t trust myself with her, and I do not deserve nor will I ever be worthy of Lucia Harding again.

“I love you, Cal. You need—”

“I can’t.” I shake my head, partly in disgust at myself, mostly a warning to the both of us that this can never work again. My failure as a man to protect the woman at my side is glaringly obvious to me with just one look.

But even knowing that, my mind and my body are at war.

The push and pull of my body versus my mind has me tied up in knots. I want to comfort her whilst knowing I am the cause of her pain, to be able to take her in my arms and make everything and everyone else disappear when I know she would be safer without me.

The most painful of contradictions causing the deepest of scars.

Losing Lucia is my punishment—my penance—for committing an unforgivable sin.

I give her one last look, knowing that everything I’m feeling is on full display—no pretense, nothing hiding everything I am. Then I turn and make myself walk away from the only woman to see behind the mask.