Rock Bottom - Lilley R. K. - Страница 47

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Could I really do this? I wondered.

One thing was for certain, I couldn’t do it without touching her at least one last time.

Her hands went to my hair, gripping.  I could tell that, with just the small touch I’d given her, she was softening in her anger.  She never stayed mad at me for long, no matter how much I deserved it.

I kissed her belly, that perfect belly.  “Danika,” I breathed against her skin.  My arms snaked around her body, clutching her.  “We can’t do this anymore.”

She stiffened, then relaxed, stroking my hair.  “Drink some more coffee, Tristan.  Get sobered up before you start spouting nonsense at me again.”

I kissed her belly again, closing my eyes, digging deep for strength that I didn’t think I possessed.

“This isn’t working, Danika.  You know it as well as I do.”

“Stop it!” she said sharply, tugging my head back, making me look at her.

I flinched away.

She was ruthless, following me, kissing me, lying down beside me.

I groaned and covered her body with mine, needing to feel her against me more than I needed to breathe, even if this was the last time.

“I’m sorry,” I breathed against her face.  “I’m done.”

I couldn’t take her eyes for even a second, couldn’t take the wounded, condemning stare, the pursed, angry mouth.  “Stop it,” she said, but this time her voice was weaker, less certain.

Still, she wasn’t done torturing us both, and lifted her head to press her lips to mine.  I took her mouth with a rough moan.

She was going to be taking another important piece of me with her when I made her leave.  There was no helping it.  No changing it.

“We’re over, sweetheart,” I told her, when we pulled away to catch our breaths.

“No,” she protested, her voice a faint thread.

She kissed me again, and I kissed her back.  She peeled her shirt off, and I helped her, my hands roaming freely over her bared skin.  She reached down to free my thick length into her hand, and I pushed hard against her palm.

I was only human, and a flawed one at that.

She stripped us both bare, and pulled me on top of her.  I didn’t enter her, just lay on top of her, our bodies molded perfectly together, our heartbeats pumping restlessly against each other, my erection throbbing along her entrance.

It was the most exquisite torture.

When all else failed, I thought, become the kind of asshole that I knew she would hate.  I squeezed my eyes shut as though bracing for a blow, face buried in her neck.  “I think I’d be better off on my own.  Being tied down just isn’t doing it for me.”

She was sobbing, and I held her.  She kissed me, still sobbing, and I kissed her back, eyes still closed tight.  “Why, Tristan, why?  Why are you doing this?”

“We need to do what’s best for us, and at this point in our lives, we aren’t best for each other.”  I used the we, because if I made it only about her, she’d never accept it.  The we was a lie, but it was also my only hope.  “This marriage was a mistake.”

She writhed against me, shifting her hips to push me inside of her.  Her sobs came in sweet, soft pants against my cheek.  With a rough gasp, I shoved in to the hilt.

I was dying, and in my death throes, I let myself have her one last time.

Every stroke was sweet agony.  Every cry I drew from her held as much pain as it did pleasure.

I rutted out my pleasure inside of her sweet, perfect body, and a torrent of self-loathing tainted every rough stroke.

My skin should have been crawling in shame when I was done.  I should have never been able to rest again, for the guilt.

But should haves meant nothing.  I came, buried deep inside of her, and still buried deep, I fell asleep.

When I woke again, fourteen hours later, she was gone.

DANIKA

He lay on top of me, buried deep, and fell asleep.

He slept all night like that, and I did not move him, did not want to.  I gasped breath in and out and closed my eyes and thought that I would never forget this feeling, of him on me and in me, of him consuming my soul and letting me go.

He was too callous, too far gone to realize that I’d never be free of him, and all he’d really done was set me adrift.

I never left that bed.

That feeling of helpless abandonment and unendurable longing stayed inside of me, for hours, for months, for minutes, for weeks.

For years.

I went through my life, through tragedy and pain, through hardship and life, and my heart, my very soul, stayed in that bed.

I felt broken after that last encounter.

Was broken.

Pieces of me had been shattered on that bed, important, essential pieces, and they would not, could not, ever find their way back together.

But I kept going.  Life is cruel like that.

The facts revealed themselves all too clearly, when I could look at it through the numb filter of fresh, untested grief.  That brief moment between the denial and the agony.

I had two distinct paths to choose from in front of me.

One was painfully bright, and paved with brutal certainties.  I could move on.  It would hurt, it would kill some parts of me, but I could still have a future.  It was not the path I desired, but life was not about getting what you wanted, it was about living with what you needed.

Tristan started me calling me exactly one week later, apologizing, trying to take it back, but I didn’t take his calls.  Couldn’t.

He had too many weapons that he used against me with no effort at all.  I was defenseless against those weapons.  The only way to survive was to avoid them completely.

I sent Jerry to Tristan with the divorce papers and a very long letter explaining everything that was in my heart, explaining every action.  And I’d given him a choice.

Rehab or divorce.  He had to decide.

I could not take seeing him again.  I could not physically hold myself together and see again the evidence of how he was tearing himself apart.  I had some little bit of myself left to save, and in a last ditch effort, I needed to at least attempt to save that little, damaged bit.

I could not spare even one more tiny, wounded, piece of myself, or I would lose any shot of making it out alive.

The papers came back promptly.  They were signed.

He didn’t call me again.

DANIKA

It was over a month later when I began to feel a familiar nausea that I associated with only one thing, as I’d only experienced it when I was in a condition I’d only been in one other time.

I couldn’t quite believe it when I first had the thought.

But why not?  That last brutal, heartbreaking, soul-crushing time we’d had together had held such weight, contained such substance, that it should have been no wonder that it’d had such life-changing results.

I was pregnant.  Again.

I was terrified, but excited, no, exalted, and it changed everything between one instant and the next.  Having that life growing inside of me made what had seemed so insurmountable before seem like a possibility again.  The divorce was suddenly unnecessary, this unbearable, permanent separation from Tristan had an abrupt, merciful end.

With one little plus sign, I went from believing that our breakup was the only way for me to survive intact, to realizing, with gasping, desperate relief, that I didn’t have to torture myself anymore.

I’d cut off all contact with Tristan with determined resolve, and I had managed to maintain that resolve, thus far.  It hadn’t been easy.  As though our hearts had been severed from each other, I felt an aching, twitchy pain, and I’d gotten through each day without caving through sheer force of will.  But now I didn’t have to suffer anymore.

I felt like I’d been let out on parole.

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