Unveiled

I’m not sure how much time passes. The only indication is how sore my lips are and how achy my tongue is. When I’m finally released from his harsh hold, I pull away, a little breathless, and stare down at the monstrosity I’ve just created on his perfect neck. I flinch. It isn’t perfect now. It looks hideous, and I’m sure Miller will agree when he sees it. I can’t rip my eyes away from the ugliness.

‘Perfect,’ he sighs. He yawns and clasps my neck, then rolls us until I’m held snuggly under him and he’s straddling my hips, sitting up on me. I’m still dazed and confused, and Miller lightly tracing the contours of my breasts with the tip of his finger doesn’t distract me from that.

‘It looks horrible,’ I confess, wondering at what point he’s going to check out the damage I’ve done.

‘Maybe,’ he muses, not giving my concern the concern it deserves. He just happily continues to delicately trail his finger all over my torso.

I mentally shrug to myself. I’m certainly not going to get myself all worked up – something Miller does best – if the king of stress isn’t even bothering. So instead I ask the question I planned on asking the moment I found him . . . before he laid his hands on me and distracted me with a little Miller-style worshipping, albeit a little harder this time. Little? I smile. That was a proper good fucking, and surprisingly I loved every single moment. ‘What was in that envelope?’ I begin carefully, knowing this needs to be broached sensitively.

He doesn’t even look at me, nor does he falter in his task of drawing invisible lines all over me. ‘What happened with you and Gregory?’ He looks at me, eyes full of knowing. I can’t even breathe. Gregory was right to be worried. ‘Gregory didn’t look too comfortable when I inquired.’

My eyes close and I remain silent, failing to prevent the guilty signs from charging forward.

‘Tell me it meant nothing.’

I swallow hard, furiously debating my best angle. Confess. Or deny. My conscience gets the better of me. ‘He was trying to comfort me,’ I blurt quietly. ‘It went too far.’

‘When?’

‘After you took me to the hotel.’

He winces, pulling in a calming stretch of air.

‘We didn’t have sex,’ I continue nervously, keen to clear that little bit of suspicion up. I’m not liking the shakes that his body has developed. ‘A silly fumble, that’s all. We both regret it. Please don’t hurt him.’

His nostrils flare, like it’s taking every modicum of his waning strength not to explode. It undoubtedly is. ‘If I hurt him, I hurt you. I’ve hurt you enough already.’ His teeth clench. ‘But it won’t happen again.’

That is a statement, not a question or request for confirmation. It won’t be happening again. So I remain quiet until I eventually see his chest heaves begin to subside. He’s calming, but I still posed a question before we slipped off course, and I want an answer. ‘The envelope.’

‘What about it?’

I chew on the inside of my mouth, deliberating whether to continue. He’s slipping into detachment. ‘What was inside?’

‘A note from Charlie.’

I kind of knew that, but his willing reply surprises me. ‘What did it say?’ The follow-up question slips out without hesitation this time.

‘It told me how I can get out of this world.’

My mouth drops open. He has an out? Charlie’s going to release him from the invisible shackles? Oh my God! The potential of all this being over, of us getting on with our lives, is suddenly too much to comprehend. No wonder Miller looks so peaceful, but I soon pull up when a small point worms its way past my relief and happiness. Actually, a huge point. He read that letter in the kitchen at my house and looked completely stricken past the cool impassiveness of his mask. He was troubled, so what’s changed since then to make him seem so at ease? I steel myself and ask the question I should’ve asked before I let my excitement run away with me. ‘How can you get out of this world?’ My instinct to hold my breath worries me. It tells me I’m not going to like the answer.

But my question still doesn’t make his finger falter across my skin, and he still isn’t looking at me. ‘It doesn’t matter because I’m not doing it.’

‘Is it bad?’

‘The worst,’ he answers without thought, almost scowling before it drifts into disgust. ‘I have another way.’

‘Like what?’

‘I’ll kill him.’

‘What?’ I wriggle beneath him in a panic, but I don’t go anywhere, and I wonder if he positioned himself like this on purpose, knowing damn well I’d start pressing for answers and want to escape when he gave them to me. And I don’t know why I’m acting so shocked by his shocking, hateful promise. After what William said and Miller’s look, I had a bad feeling he would say that. What Charlie proposed is worse? How?

‘Stay where you are.’ He’s calm. Too calm, and it just makes me all the more freaked. He seizes my wrists and holds them above my head, and I’m now puffing exhausted bursts of air into his face. ‘It’s the only way.’

‘No, it’s not!’ I argue. ‘Charlie’s given you another way. Take it!’

He shakes his head adamantly. ‘No. And that’s the end of it!’ His jaw is tight now, eyes darkening in warning. I don’t care. Nothing can be worse than killing someone. I won’t let him do it.

‘It fucking isn’t!’ I yell. ‘Get off me!’ I heave and flip myself, all without success.