Total pages in book: 126
Estimated words: 126154 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 631(@200wpm)___ 505(@250wpm)___ 421(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 126154 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 631(@200wpm)___ 505(@250wpm)___ 421(@300wpm)
And then Alexander lets him go.
Dean barely even says goodbye, just limps from the room with his shirt still unbuttoned, shooting me a wild-eyed glance as he goes.
I flinch as the door closes behind him, collapsing onto the bed as my mind spins with all this.
Alexander pours me another wine and I take it with shaky fingers. I down it in one, even though it tastes rancid.
“I guess Dean’s not one for small talk.” His voice is laced with black humour, and that gives me shivers too.
“I guess not,” I whisper, and my cheeks are burning.
I’m surprised when he pours himself another whisky. I’m itching to get out of here, desperate to be just about anywhere besides the place I almost took my best friend’s dick.
“How do you know him?” Alexander asks, and I bolt upright.
“What?”
He smirks. “How do you know him? Don’t even think about lying to me, Amy.” His eyes are so dark. “I hate it when people lie to me.”
My whole body is burning. The urge to crumble and confess everything is a dam waiting to burst, but I can’t.
The quiet anger in his stare tells me that I can’t.
I’m surprised my brain isn’t too addled to think my way out of this as I swim through my options.
“It was supposed to be a surprise…” I tell him. “I’m sorry… I just…”
“You paid him?”
I shake my head, because I don’t think I could pull off that lie even if I wanted to. “We were friends at school. I know he… likes men…”
“So you called him up and said Hey, Dean, how about taking my boyfriend’s cock in your ass this weekend? Is that how it went?”
Boyfriend.
“Something like that.”
“And what the hell makes you think I can’t find a man for myself?”
“That isn’t what I think!”
He comes closer, my stomach lurches as he climbs onto the bed alongside me. “So, enlighten me, Amy. What do you think?”
I shake my head as the tears prick. “I wanted to do it for you. You do so much for me… and I… I wanted to make you happy…”
“Make me happy by setting up an old school pal to take my dick in his ass?”
I shrug. “Oh God, Alexander, I don’t know! I wasn’t thinking straight! It was…”
“Stupid,” I tell her. “Reckless to think I wouldn’t fucking notice. Believe me, Amy, I notice everything.”
But he doesn’t.
I shiver at the thought of him ever finding out about all my lies. I shiver at the stupid idea I ever thought I could confess my real identity and still have him at the end of it.
“I’m sorry,” I tell him, and I am. “Please forgive me.”
“I’ve already forgiven you,” he says. “If I hadn’t, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”
The relief washes over me so hard my head spins. “Thank God,” I say, and my hand is to my heart as it begins to calm.
It takes me by surprise when his fingers land on my throat, steals my breath as he flattens me to my back and brushes my lips with his.
His voice is cold. Harsh.
“I don’t like being played, Amy. Don’t ever fucking do it again.”
“I won’t,” I whisper, and he kisses me. His fingers stay loose, and I keep breathing, even though my insides are burning up.
“You played a dangerous game,” he tells me, and I could cry. He doesn’t know the half of it.
He rolls onto his back with his arm under his head, and if he’s still angry he doesn’t show it. The room feels bitter cold now, and I know it’s probably just my own shock, but I pull the covers over myself and drape them over him too. He doesn’t pull away as I lay my head on his chest.
I love listening to his heartbeat.
It’s so much calmer than mine.
“That could have gone badly,” he says, as if I don’t already know that.
I nod anyway. “I’m sorry.”
“We’re done with sorry. I’m trying tell you something.” It feels like heaven as his hand wraps around my waist under the covers. “I think you need to know.”
My voice is so timid. “Need to know what?”
“Why I have such a… reaction to wanting men.”
“You don’t have to…” I begin, but he shakes his head.
“Just listen,” he says, and I do.
Alexander
My throat is dry as I opt to tell this sad fucking tale.
I can’t say it’s a pleasant confession. The last time I told this story it cost me my marriage – the final dying scraps of the sham it was anyway.
I’d made a note to myself in the aftermath – never fucking talk about it. But I’m drawing a line through that now.
“My parents are pieces of shit,” I tell her. “I used to feel sorry for my mother, putting up with all my father’s fucking crap all the time. The women, the late nights, the work meetings that ran on until the early hours most days. I thought she was naive. I thought she turned a blind eye to all his seedy outlets because she was scared of losing him. I thought that’s why she drank herself into oblivion every fucking evening before I’d even finished my dinner.”