Yeah, he thinks about it.
Lays in his own bloody bed in the night, stroking himself feverish as he imagines taking her. As he thinks about her wide, guileless eyes darkening into something feral. He can almost feel the way her perfectly manicured nails dig into his scalp, his arse, as he pounds into her with abandon, with no care in the world but his own pleasure.
Admit it: you want her.
Yes I do. In the worst possible way.
He wants to know what her throat feels like beneath his teeth, wants to mark every inch of her. "Mine," he'd growl into her soft, mouse brown hair as his hands tightened on her wrists.
Yeah, some days he wants to possess her completely once and for all. Force her to see him for what he really is, ruining her and him and them in the process.
Compounding these thoughts, of course, is his knowledge that there never has been a version of him she couldn't handle, couldn't meet him at halfway. Even if he were to show her his darkest, most tainted desires, he knows she'd give as good as she got.
He's never wanted that for her, though. That incandescent smile and those loving, supportive arms (that always seem to know just how to keep him from breaking apart at the seams): they deserve so much more than his need to consume, to subsume, to cut to the quick. Gill deserves the sun and the moon and the Adriatic Sea – Shakespearean bloody sonnets soliloquizing about her name and likeness – served to her on a silver platter.
And yeah, he thinks about that, too. About what it might be like to give her what she deserves. He likes to imagine her spread bare before him, whimpering as he kisses every inch of her – the backs of her knees, the curve of her hip, the tip of her nose. He has to stop himself from coming when he pictures his head between her thighs, writing a love letter to her cunt with an eager, besotted tongue, her fingers carding reverently through his hair (no nails in sight).
And when he finally enters her, the smile on her face, the trust in her eyes, would be everything. That's how they found themselves here in the first place, after all: her standing solidly at his side – day after day, year after year – looking at him like he might actually be worth a damn.
In that moment, her cunt wrapped around him in the most perfect, velvety vice grip, she'd transform him with that gaze of hers. They'd breathe into each other's mouths as they rutted, first slowly, then picking up pace, and she'd whisper his name. When he's alone in his own bed with his hand on his cock, that's when he comes, when he pictures blinding pleasure start to overtake her and she breathes out his ridiculous fuckin' name.
"Cal," she'd pant, and it would be the answer to a question, the trip wire that led him to whispering the sickest shit he could imagine into her (precious, beloved) ear.
"You're the most gorgeous bloody thing I've ever seen."
"I'd be lost without you."
"You're everything, Gill."
But then he remembers the look in her eye when she's completely irate with him, when he knows she'd like nothing more than to rip his throat out.
And he thinks about that too. About paying penance for all the wounds he's so callously inflicted on her over the years, for all his thoughtlessness and reckless behavior. For all the times he's withheld information or risked their business or issued unfair ultimatums.
It's then that he pictures himself on his knees before her, head bowed in contrition. She'd bring sharp, unforgiving nails to his scalp, forcing his face to her center. "Make me come," she'd demand in her coldest, most detached voice. It's the tone that's always scared him the most, the one that tells him she really could leave for good one day. That he could saunter down the hallway like he does every morning only to finally find her office empty, their employees panicking. Himself alone.
The dread would drive him forward, would make him forget about his need for oxygen, forget everything but the taste of her. In that moment, he'd have no care in the world but her own pleasure.
And later, she'd ride him relentlessly, cruelly, bringing him to the brink over and over, never letting him find release. He would, though, find benediction, salvation, in her torture, and what he'd never had the courage to say in daylight would bubble to his lips on repeat, a repentant mantra.
"I'm so sorry, darling."
"Please forgive me."
He'd seek out her gaze, anxious for connection, but she wouldn't let him have it. She'd close her eyes or watch the ceiling, a bitter smile teasing at her lips all the while.
On any given day, he can't decide which of these scenarios he wants, usually getting off on a combination of all three. Sometimes he wonders if she'd like for them to bite and then kiss it better, to hurt and soothe all at once.
But his real issue, the reason he can't get his fantasies about her straight, is he has trouble picturing the real Gill accepting any advance of his. Every time he allows his feelings for her to simmer near the surface, she draws that ugly little line between them. Each time he leans into her space, reminding them both that he's got all this pent up want inside of him, she instinctively pulls away. It's never a conscious thought, either. It's instinctual, muscle memory maybe. Stay away, her gentle hand on his sternum warns. There be monsters. But other times her eyes plead with him to let her in, to remain close. Moments where her hands stroke his face like it's the most precious thing in the world.
It's like they're in a constant state of tug-of-war, a game that never ends and yet they both somehow come out lookin' like losers. How long before the rope finally snaps in two?
The worst of it is there's no one on earth he can talk about it with, help puzzle out a solution. The only person he's willing to be honest with is his own daughter, and indeed she's the one who knows the closest approximation of the truth.
No, I mean really love her.
When you put it like that, what's he meant to say? They can run from it, couch it in other terms, talk around it for eons. Even if, lately especially, it seems to cut more than it soothes. Even if it terrifies them. They're both intelligent people; they know what they share between them. Saw it coming a long time ago, in fact.
They've each spent years building deep and fortifying walls to keep the other out. Scar tissue, he thinks Gill might call that.
Despite it all, he'd recognize it anywhere, this thing that keeps them circling each other, keeps them from moving forward or backward or even sideways most of the time.
It's love alright. As much and as little as that.
And yeah, he thinks about that too. He just doesn't have the slightest bloody clue what to do about it.
A/N: Second chapter incoming with the fallout of these thoughts (the rope snapping, if you will). Thanks for reading :)