“Asshole,” I grumbled, trying to catch my breath. Neil just bit his lip to hide his amusement. Then he surprised me, whirling me around so my back was to him and my ass hit his pelvis. He reached up and covered my eyes with one hand. “Neil!” I called out in surprise, but he just leaned down to my ear and kissed my throat.
“Shh…” he said in a coaxing whisper, pushing me to walk sightlessly forward. At first I moved slowly, afraid I was going to crash into something. But his arms around me and the marble-hard body at my back gave me a feeling of security and made me feel protected. I let my head fall back to rest on his chest and let him guide me.
“Walk straight ahead. Now turn right.”
I obeyed, walking blindly at Neil’s urging until my thighs hit something soft.
“Lie down,” he instructed as I felt the soft top of the mattress with my hand. He uncovered my eyes once I was on the bed, but I still couldn’t see anything because the room was pitch black. I laid back, my heart racing. My quickened breath cut through the air—the only sound. I looked over and tried to find Neil next to me; although I blinked several times to acclimate to the darkness, I still couldn’t make out anything. Not even the outline of his body.
Suddenly, I felt his weight on top of me. He climbed over me gingerly, his chest pressing against mine, and slotted his hips between my thighs, which parted obligingly for him.
“What a romantic way to get me into a bed,” I snarked.
His deep, masculine laugh shook both of us. Then he began kissing my neck, and I gasped at the feeling of his hot mouth against my skin. He moved down my throat, and I moaned, writhing underneath him.
I stroked along his spine, tight and powerful. My hands drifted down to squeeze his glutes, appreciating the honed musculature. Just touching him seemed to shut down the darker turn of my thoughts and banish everything that had happened during the day. I pressed my palm to his crotchand found him already stiff and upright. He emitted a heated groan when I grasped it, and internally, I crowed with pride. I wanted him to peel off my clothes and satisfy me the way only he could, but instead Neil held still above me, his head fitting into the curve of my neck.
For a moment, he felt fragile as I clutched him close to me.
“Remember the time you once told me that there is a star for everyone, far enough away that our mistakes cannot tarnish it?” he said in a thoughtful murmur.
“Sure. It’s from Bobin, the French poet,” I answered, sinking one hand into his hair while continuing to stroke his firm back. Neil pushed himself off me, and I was alarmed to no longer feel his warmth. I groped for him wildly, like I would die without him. My heart rate sped up, afraid I’d done something wrong. I could never tell with Neil; it was impossible to predict how he might react to things. Then I heard a switch being flicked.
I was blinded by a dazzling light.
A sky filled with stars and celestial bodies stretched as if by magic across the entire ceiling, lighting up the room.
Neil had a small planetarium on the bedside table, and he used it to project this incredible vault of heaven before lying back down beside me to appreciate it.
“Whenever you’re sad, stretch out on the bed and look up at the stars. There are about fifty thousand of them up there right now. I think that should be enough to obscure any pain…” he said heartbreakingly, and I turned to look at him.
“Should a cynic like yourself really be rhapsodizing about the stars?” I asked him wryly, watching the light bounce of his face. He turned to me and gave me a tiny smile.
“I don’t know, should a girl who dreams of Prince Charming be spending so much time with the dark knight?” he said in a familiar needling way.
I rolled onto my side and inched closer to him, resting a hand on his naked chest. His skin there was cold, so I wrapped my arms around his chest to warm him. I tilted my face up until our breaths commingled.
“Why do I get the feeling that you’re trying to prepare me for an injury that you’re probably going to be the one to inflict?” I murmured with a sickfeeling in my stomach that all of this was not an innocently sweet gesture from Neil.
He was trying to get me to understand something.
He wanted me to read his silent language.
“Because you’re smart, Tinkerbell. And you know that this thing between the two of us is impossible,” was his cold response. “I still have my past hanging on to me. It’s like this long cloak of shadows that just keeps surrounding and suffocating everyone who gets close to me…”
Neil had a fiercely independent soul, wounded and untamed. I loved him as he was—as all that he was. I loved him because of his differences. I knew, though, that love wasn’t enough to cure him. We both knew it. His words hurt, yes, but I could also feel the truth in them. It was raw, but it was true.
If, one day, he chose to exercise his freedom away from me, I would have still kept on loving the rebellious, tortured beast within him.
There was no cure for me, either.
“Neil—” I began to say, but he silenced me with a kiss that halted my words in midair.
He thought words were useless. He’d always rather turn me inside out, ignite my feelings with the same passion that always brought us together.
“Use me, Selene. Do it while you still can…” he said, before capturing my lips once again. He slid over top of me, pulling off the rest of my clothes with unsentimental efficiency. He took what he wanted, like always. He opened my thighs wide for him and joined us together with all the ferocity inside of him. He thrust his fears into me, the broken hopes, the frustration, the misery, and all the hurt he was feeling. It was a punishment, an attempt to make me see that there was no future for us, that we were both destined to lose this ceaseless war between us.
That, even as we sought refuge, we sought it from a land of never. Never was, never will be.
