Take Me in the Dark Read Free Page B

must already know it does.
    “It’s just surprising. I’m just—”
    “Scared, and you should be. You know nothing about me.”
    “I think I know more than you give me credit for. I’m not gonna lie. This is weird, but it’s always been weird, and you still found a way to share so much of yourself with me. Your letters—”
    “Are what I want you to know,” he interrupts.
    My heartbeat escalates. I hope he can’t hear it. I try to back up but the wall’s behind me.
    He sighs and steps back. “I’m sorry, Laura.”
    Laura. Not solnyshko moyo . It feels like a world of difference. My bones turn to ice. If he touched me right now, I’d shatter.
    “You should be,” I whisper.
    “I think it’s best if I go.”
    “Why? Because this way’s easier for you? You retain all your power over me by leaving, and you strip me of any power I might have had over you.”
    “That’s not what this is.”
    “Oh really? Am I supposed to believe that just because you said so? And if that’s the case, doesn’t that prove my point? You don’t get to start something this fucked up and then walk away because it’s ‘unhealthy.’ The only explanation I’ll accept from you is if you don’t want me anymore, because I still want you.”
    He’s quiet for a moment. His rough fingers brush the hair from my face. “Are you happy? Have you been happy since you met me?”
    My mind goes blank. I breathe unsteadily. I don’t know. I never even thought about happiness. Happiness was never a part of this . I don’t want to admit those things, so I turn the question back on him. “Are you happy with me?”
    He doesn’t hesitate. “Yes. Even before you read my first letter, you were the only thing that made me happy.”
    My eyes go wide and sting from being open for so long. I don’t think too much about the fact that I somehow made him happy before he read my first letter. I don’t know quite how to deal with that information yet. So instead, I say, “Maybe I’m happy too.”
    He shakes his head. “Desire and happiness are two different things.”
    “Now you can read my mind?”
    He reaches for me. His thumbs slide over the soft underside of my wrist. “It isn’t the same for you. You want me because you like how I fuck you.”
    His words hurt because there’s an element of truth of them. “If you wanted more from me, maybe you should have opened up a bit.”
    “I want a lot of things from you I can’t have. I’ve wanted you for so long that I stopped caring how I had you as long as I could take just one part of you.” He lets go and steps towards the door. “I don’t even deserve this much.”
    I ground my teeth. He accepted this? It was me that had to accept it and anything else he was or wasn’t willing to give me, because if I didn’t he’d disappear. “Did you know this would never work before or after you fucked me that first time?”
    “Before.” His voice is softer. Maybe that’s why it sounds guilty. Maybe that’s why, even more than my anger, I feel my heart breaking for him.
    “I’m sorry,” he says after a long moment.
    “You’re sorry,” I repeat, smiling humorlessly. “I think I almost hate you right now.”
    “I hope you do. You asked me to leave, and you were right to. I won’t come to you again.”
    “Oh really?” I laugh. “You’ll have to forgive me for doubting you. I mean, you did say that the last time you showed up to fuck me.”
    “I won’t again.”
    My hand curls into a fist. “Not even if I bring David up to my room?”
    He breathes faster. He’s not as calm and collected as he pretends to be. He obviously hates this, so why won’t he do what it takes to stay?
    “I did kiss him,” I say, my voice growing louder, “and when I did, he took a part of me that you will never have. Soon my body will realize what my mind and you already know—that everything between us is nothing more than a beautiful lie.”
    His shoulder falls into the doorway. I wonder if this