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“She’s pretty.” The melodic sound of a thick French accent ripples down my spine, and I blink awake to find Solange knelt down between my splayed thighs. Her nails rake across my trousers, and she pushes up to her knees, resting her belly against my groin. “Does she excite you, young master?”
She comes to me sometimes, when I’m stressed. I know she’s not real, even if she feels real. Sounds real. Smells real.
“Yes,” I answer, watching her unlatch my trousers, the wily smile showing off her one crooked tooth.
“She makes you hard, I see.” Massaging the ache between my thighs has me grinding my teeth, and when she gives a light squeeze, my thighs come up off the chair as I let out a growl of frustration. “Why do you think that is?”
“I don’t know.”
“She’s young. Delicious. And there is nothing more exciting than the forbidden fruit.” With her hand shoved down inside my trousers, she slides her palm up my shaft over the thin, silky fabric of my boxer briefs. “Pretend I’m her. Take me any way you want, Lucian.”
I set my hand over hers to make it stop. “No.”
“You know the rules,” she breathes, her voice louder inside my head. “You can’t have both of us.”
“Then, leave.”
A shocked expression meets my gaze, as if she’s just been slapped. “You would send me away? Why?”
“Lucian?” At the quiet pitch of Isa’s voice, I freeze, opening my eyes to find my own hand down inside my pants, Solange nowhere in sight. “I’m sorry.” Fingers fidgeting where she keeps her hands crossed in front of her, Isa’s standing in the middle of my office again. “I know you said to leave, but … who were you talking to? A second ago?”
There’s an uncertainty in her voice, one I know very well. It’s come in other forms from various people--strange looks, avoidance, and in the worst cases, has resulted in more treatments and drugs.
“Why are you still here?” I slide my hand out of my pants and twist my chair to face her.
“I wanted to make sure you were okay.” Gaze cast from mine, she clears her throat. “Who’s Solange?”
Christ, I don’t even remember having said her name, at all. “No one.”
Still not bothering to look at me, she nods. “I see that. But you were talking to her anyway.”
“And you wouldn’t have seen anything, if you’d have left as I asked.”
Warm gray eyes finally lift to mine, the stubborn glint behind them telling me she doesn’t intend to let this go.
The question isn’t should I tell her, because at this point, anything I tell her will sound the same. It doesn’t matter who Solange is to me. What matters is that Isa will have yet another reason to stay away from me.
Yet, maybe it’s better that way.
“What do you want, Isa? To know if I’m crazy? The Mad Son everyone claims I am? The answer is yes. But then, that was never really a secret, was it?”
Feet still glued to the same spot, she shakes her head. “I never believed the rumors. It was your mother who told me about the hallucinations of your friend. Jude?”
Leave it to my mother to perpetuate the very rumors she feared back then. I stare back at Isa, my throat suddenly dry and parched, and I reach for the decanter to pour myself another drink.
“She told me he died when you were very young,” she adds, finally taking a step closer.
Gaze buried in the liquor, I lick my lips, the scent of the bourbon already puckering my tongue, while an image of Jude’s face comes to mind. “It used to be the mere mention of him would incite flashbacks. That awful sound of his screams over the crashing of waves. The look of fear in his eyes when he reached out for me, as the waves swept him to sea. I’d end up blacking out. Don’t even know how long.” I finally take a sip from my glass, letting warm liquid slide down my throat. “If not for the pictures I have from when we were young, I’d wonder if he was ever even real.”
“Why do you say that?”
A quiet chuckle escapes me as I swirl my drink. “I don’t think you want down that rabbit hole, Isa. It’s dark, and there is no bottom.”
“Try me.” The resolution in her eyes is remarkably attractive somehow. Almost fearless.
“All right. Solange was … an affliction of a different sort. Unlike Jude, she never actually existed. Yet, she taught me things that, to this day, are very real for me.” I study her reaction for a moment, waiting for that familiar flicker of disbelief.
Instead, the intensity of her stare speaks of intrigue. Fucking intrigue.
