Scarlet Stone, page 16
“She died—of cancer—before I turned two. My best friend died of cancer too.”
“But you didn’t.”
I kiss his ear again, memorizing the feel of every point where our bodies connect, memorizing the smell of ocean in his hair, the rare vulnerability in his voice. “No. Not yet.”
“Why do you think that is?”
“Why do you swim in the ocean?”
His long lashes flutter with a few blinks. “It feels natural and … freeing. It’s where I let go of everything and it’s …”
I sit up and press my hand to his cheek. He sits back on his heels like I’ve seen him do while working a million times before.
“It’s what?”
His lips twist. “It’s the only time that nothing has to make sense. It’s just me, my breaths, my heartbeat, and the rest of the world could cease to exist in that moment and I wouldn’t care.” He slips off my shoes and socks and rests my feet on his legs, pressing his palms to them.
I curl my toes into the denim, never wanting to lose our touch. “That’s why I left. There was never any moment of grand hope that I would beat cancer. Anyone who beats terminal cancer by any means possible is a bloody miracle. I’m many things, but I never thought I’d be a miracle. I needed for once to find my breath, feel my heartbeat, and let the rest of the world … fade away. I wanted to die without fear or regret. I wanted to find a shred of meaning to my life.”
I shake my head as his hands ghost along my bare feet. “I think so many things in my life fed the disease, and when I truly let go of all of it … it had nothing left to feed on.”
Theo looks up and I don’t feel crazy or judged. I wish Daniel could have looked at me like this. Just once.
“I needed out, and I couldn’t really explain it. I had to leave.”
He nods slowly.
“That’s why I won’t hold on to you. If you still have to leave, knowing how desperately I want you to stay, then I won’t stand in the way.”
His chin dips down and his throat bobs. “I’ll try to come back,” he mumbles.
I don’t want even a thread of a promise, a possibility that will leave me constantly holding my breath—waiting, hoping, dying a little each day he doesn’t return.
“I won’t wait for you.”
I detect a hint of a nod. Is it as painful for him to think about me not being here if he does return as it is for me thinking about him not returning? If so, then Karma is back on her game today.
Leaning forward, I playfully tug his beard until he looks up at me. I don’t imagine Theodore Reed has shed a tear since his parents died, but right now, I swear I see tears in his bloodshot eyes.
“If there’s another life after this one, we should make a date.”
The corner of his mouth curls a bit.
“Food. Small talk. Maybe I say something that makes you grin. Maybe you say something that makes me giggle. Maybe the food is crap so we drink too much wine. Maybe the full moon beckons us to the beach where we walk in the shadows of the night. Maybe you tell me something about yourself. But maybe … just maybe it’s something so honest I can’t help but fall in love with you. And maybe you build me a house and fill it with hundreds of plants and even a dog. I’ve never had a dog.”
He cradles my face in his hands as I do his in mine, and we just … breathe in … and breathe out …
One.
Two.
Three.
“It’s a date.” He smiles and I cry.
Fuck it. Life is too short to hold in a single tear, a single laugh, a single breath. Biology is how we exist. Emotions are how we live.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
My name is Scarlet Stone, and I see the people around me as opportunities to see different sides of myself.
“What’s with the chair?” Theo asks, one arm folded behind his head, his other hugging me to his side, his hand cupping my breast.
I look out the bedroom door to the perfect view of my picnic chair. “Now? Really? Now you’ve decided to be observant?”
“And these sheets … fucking hideous.”
Resting my chin on his chest, I bite back my grin, content with just looking at him. “Anything else?”
He dips his head toward me. “Your hair.”
“It’s short. Lie to me. This is one thing I don’t want you to have an opinion on. I cut it. It will be a very long time before it grows back out, but had I had chemo I probably would have lost it anyway so—”
“It’s fucking gorgeous.”
My eyebrows perk. “Really?” I whisper.
“Really.”
I smile and for this moment, these breaths, I don’t feel sad. “The chair was all I could afford and the sheets were in the sale. The hair is laziness. It’s easier.”
“You need money?”
My name is Scarlet Stone, and I see the people around me as opportunities to see different sides of myself.
“No. My financial situation is a choice at the moment. I could get a better paying job or go back to lying, cheating, and stealing, but I’m fascinated by the whole living payday to payday thing. It’s humbling and challenging at the same time. Much like the Argonaut octopus. It’s a type of nautilus. Its penis, which is essentially a ball of sperm in a tentacle, can completely detach to look for lady parts to wiggle into—challenging. But … once it lets go of the goods, it soon dies—humbling.”
Theo’s chest vibrates with laughter. “How does ‘do you need money’ turn into a detachable penis story?”
“Oh … so to answer your question, I’m good. I’ll survive.”
“And your head?”
“My head?”
He releases my breast long enough to smooth the pad of his finger over my cut.
I frown. “Work injury.”
“Nellie more of a handful than you thought?”
My chin rolls back and forth on his chest as I shake my head. “Harold.”
Theo’s brow knits together.
“He’s worried I’m going to do something to stir up trouble.”
“Your face. What happened to your face?” His voice deepens as his teeth clench.
“He had a word with me, but he thought I’d listen better if he pinned me to the wall.”
Theo bolts to sitting, practically shoving me off the bed. “He fucking did this on purpose?”
“The pinning, yes. The cut was an accident. I think.” My nose scrunches.
“I’m going to end that son of a bitch.” He tosses the covers aside.
For a few insane seconds, I feel a bit of a rush, like I did the night he threatened the tosser from the pub on the beach. Then I think about Nellie. “Wait. No!” I grab his arm as he goes to stand.
He glares at me.
“You’re leaving in forty-eight hours. Don’t leave this bed now. I’ll call in sick tomorrow. You can bust the windshield of Harold’s car on your way out of town, but for now … stay.”
His face draws tight with pain and conflict.
I tug harder on his arm. “Me or Harold. Choose.”
After a few moments, he crawls back onto the mattress, caging me beneath him. I think over the past twenty-four hours he fractured my clamshell. I will never bike again. But he’s leaving and it’s like having your favorite food for the last time ever. Consequences be dammed!
Theo bends his arms, muscles flexing as his head lowers to mine. He kisses me like mad, and I kiss him back with just as much eagerness. I can’t wrap my head around Theodore Reed, music theory and composition graduate, a rather sophisticated title, fucking me all the time like a complete beast—a freight train.
The sex is nothing short of mind-blowing, but it’s far from romantic. It’s animalistic. When he reaches down and discovers I am dry like the Sahara because I’m so sore, his idea of gentlemanliness is to spit on his hand and rub it between my legs. I should be offended and repulsed by his behavior, but I’m not. Just the opposite. I’m turned on by this feral beast and within seconds of his fingers smearing spit on me, I’m actually throbbing for a release in spite of the pain. My nipples harden. My heels claim his back and my pelvis—my fractured clamshell—is ready for another round of torture.
I’ve lost the plot.
“Theo! Fuck fuck fuck!!!”
He silences me with his mouth, but I groan on every thrust. It’s ninety percent pain and ten percent pleasure. I’m giving all my focus to the pleasure. When his mouth moves to my neck, I search for something else to distract me from the pain while the pleasure grows enough to take the lead.
“The male porcupine…” I pant, my heels digging into his back even more “…drenches the … the female with urine from approximately two meters away.”
“What?” Theo grunts on a hard thrust, sweat beading along his brow and dripping to the ends of his hair that brush my face.
“I know. That’s disgusting. But if his pheromones turn her on …” The pleasure is winning. What does this mean? Does porcupine mating do it for me? “Then they mate until he’s physically exhausted …” my pelvis rocks against Theo’s. I’m so close. “But it’s not because of him … she’s the one who won’t let him stop.”
Theo stills.
“Don’t stop!” What I could barely handle minutes ago, I now need.
He shakes his head. “You’re not a porcupine.”
“Theo …” I beg.
His forehead drops to my shoulder, his labored breaths heating my skin even more. I wiggle my hips in search of some friction. Theo’s chest vibrates against mine.
“You’re laughing?”
“Dear god, woman …” He laughs with total inhibition.
I make one last attempt to press the play button on sex by gripping his firm arse, giving it an encouraging squeeze.
Nothing.
I’m pinned beneath two-hundred-plus pounds of laughing beast. It would seem the moment is lost.
“Pissing porcupines …” His cackling continues.
I stare over his shoulder at the cracks in the ceiling, chewing on the corner of my bottom lip. Well, this is rather embarrassing. At the same time, I can’t stop relishing the delightful sound of this man that I love or the feel of our bodies connected, our flesh pressed together.
He pulls out and rolls to the side, squeezing the bridge of his nose and … wiping tears from his eyes.
“Unbelievable. I bawl my eyes out over you leaving, and I thought for a second that you too might shed a few tears. Nope. I’m not worthy of your emotions, but the porcupine mating ritual has you crying.”
“Oh, man …” He sighs, catching his breath. I’ve never seen his smile stretch so far across his face. “Please let there be another life. I need a real taste of forever with you. This … this isn’t long enough.”
I know he’s going for humorous and lighthearted but his words punch right through my chest and rip my heart into a million jagged, unrepairable pieces.
Sitting up, needing gravity to assist my lungs in finding air, I pull the sheet to my chest.
“Tell me about this?” He tugs at the back of my necklace, the necklace I’ve worn every second we’ve been together.
Why now? Why try to know me when we have no time left?
I rub the ruby pendant between my finger and thumb. “It was my mum’s—I think.” I shake my head. “Oscar, my dad, had a habit of telling me the truth when it suited him or benefited me. I’m pretty sure he stole it.”
“It’s worth a lot of money, isn’t it?”
The sputter of a laugh escapes me. “I’m sure you’re probably thinking I should sell it and buy a car or a chair that reclines not folds.”
“Nope.”
Twisting my torso, I peer back at him, fingers laced behind his head. I find the perfect doleful smile to match my mood. “He called me Ruby, still does. I don’t think my mum ever saw this necklace.”
“So why do you wear it?”
I shrug. “I make up stories about my mum; I have most of my life. In them she’s perfect, of course. The truth is Oscar never liked talking about her. I think that’s a good thing. It has to mean that he loved her so much it’s unbearable to go back to those memories. Oscar said the ruby is from Burma, or Myanmar now, and it’s older than the history of the Stone Age. Some people believe rubies are a protective stone and that they turn dark when danger looms, returning to their natural color after the threat is gone.”
Theo’s forehead wrinkles as he chews on the inside of his cheek. It’s his thoughtful look, a little different from his pissed off look, which also involves a wrinkled brow with clenched teeth. “So, no cell phone, no computer …”
I laugh. “I was regimented. It was the most obsessive illusion of control. Up at five for my run. Shower. Breakfast alongside my computer. I traveled the world inside of a keyboard and a screen. Social media. Email. Texting. I was connected. I knew about things that were going to happen before they happened. There was no boundary that I couldn’t cross. It was always a matter of whether I chose to cross it.
“Some of the people who hired me wore suits that cost more than the average person’s car. They looked the part. But it was me who had the control. Little Scarlet Stone at her computer with sticky keys and a dusty screen, wearing a threadbare shirt, leggings, and soft, fuzzy socks, hair in a ponytail, no makeup, and vintage Rod Stewart flowing from my speakers.”
“Doesn’t sound like an illusion of control.”
I nod, gazing at him with a blank stare, seeing only the past six months flash through my mind. “It was. The day the doctor told me I was going to die … that’s when I realized the world would go on without me. I realized I controlled nothing, not even my body. And sitting in my flat, in front of a computer all day? It was the epitome of disconnect. People don’t focus on the moment or give their undivided attention to the person sitting right in front of them. We see words and pictures on screens. The art of conversation is gone. Hell, we don’t even write complete words. Life is a series of abbreviations, acronyms, and emoticons. Alcohol is stress relief instead of a toast of celebration. It’s just …”
“Fucked-up.”
“Yes.” I sprawl onto his stomach and press my lips to his, ending with a grin. “I’m not sure I can shun technology forever. But it’s this mad addiction, maybe a lethal one. The longer I can stay unplugged, the better.”
“When’s the last time you used a cell phone?”
“Well, I didn’t technically use it, but I touched Nolan’s mobile.”
“What? Like you had to touch it?”
“Well, since you asked,” because I’ve been dying to have this conversation, “he showed me a YouTube video of this band called The Derby. The bloke on guitar melted my knickers right there on the spot.”
Theo’s brows raise as his hands grip my bare arse. “Nothing good can come of you watching that.”
I bite his lower lip. His fingers dig into my skin. There’s nothing I want more than to crawl inside of this man and spend eternity piecing together what I have no doubt is an ineffable masterpiece.
Dragging my teeth along his lip, I smile. “Respectfully, I disagree. But…” I twist some of his hair around my finger “…my love affair with the devastatingly handsome guitarist is over. I don’t have access to YouTube and he’s …”
Wow … my emotions fall somewhere between harrowing and utterly suffocating. The ones that gobble up every bit of oxygen and leave my true feelings stuck inside to drown my spirit.
Theo’s hands whisper along my skin then cradle my head, bringing us nose to nose. “He’s going to miss you every damn day. The way you smell like girly shit. The way you fuck up every word with your fancy accent. The way everything about you seeps into my space and fills it with a life I didn’t ask for—a life I never needed—a life I now want so bad I’d rather die than not have it.”
“Don’t die,” I whisper, looking into his red-rimmed eyes as my tears fall to his face.
“Don’t die,” he whispers back to me a breath before we kiss like there really are no words left to say.
He rolls us until I’m beneath him. Brand me, Theodore Reed. Don’t you dare go slow and easy. Everything about us has been cataclysmic. Every touch so explosive it’s impossible to know if we’re beginning or ending. Imprint this moment so deep into my soul that in my next life I feel you long before we ever meet.
“Ugh!” I cry when he penetrates me—brands me—in the only way he knows how.
Angry.
Forceful.
Unapologetic.
The most poignant observation I’ve made over the past six months, that I failed to see over the previous thirty-one years, is that there is nothing more phenomenal than one human’s addiction to another—and there is nothing more devastating than one human’s addiction to another.
As Theo leaves his final mark on me, all I feel is this phenomenal devastation.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
My name is Scarlet Stone, and one day I will break away from the shadows of the man who raised me. Until then—I will make him proud.
Six months ago, I left Daniel with a note. We said all there was to say and by the time he woke the next morning, I was gone. The way he kissed me, the way we made love … it was goodbye and we both knew it.
Theo wasn’t supposed to leave for another day, but everything about last night was a goodbye. So, of course, next to me is an empty spot … with a note. I laugh.
“Oh … Karma.” I hug the folded note to my chest and continue to laugh through my tears.
Three Nevers
1. I’ve never been so fucking scared in my life as I was the day I laid eyes on you.
2. I never imagined loving the feel of something more than the wood and strings of my guitar, until I touched you.
3. I’ve written fifteen songs, but NEVER has any one person inspired my words.
Truth: You are my greatest song.
Theo
“Fuck!” I leap from the most pathetic excuse for a mattress and rip the tangled ugly sheet from my body.
No to space.
No to freewill.
No to respecting his need to leave.
