Part Twenty-One
He let go of her hand and she feared he was going to refuse. Instead his fingers brushed across her chin, turning her back to face him. "The reason those women saw me outside your apartment that night is because I was there. I was sitting there in the car for hours, trying to work up the nerve to go talk to you."
She'd expected something else. She'd expected that he'd try to come up with some impossible story of how he'd found her thong and was embarrassed to give it to her and so stuffed it under his seat. She'd expected that he'd claim someone had broken into his place and stolen his wedding ring. His words threw her, and she couldn't say if it was because they didn't make sense or because she simply hadn't thought she'd hear them.
"Why did you need to work up nerve to talk to me?"
"I got all the way to your door, that's when I met the younger one in the hallway. But I couldn't do it. I couldn't knock." He pulled his hand away, rubbing it over his mouth and chin, shaking his head seemingly at himself. "If I'd known he was going to attack you- Jesus, he must have been in there then, about to attack you, fuck, Olivia, if I'd known, I never would have let him hurt you."
She didn't think she could face the pain, the hurt, the tears, on his face. "What were you doing there?"
He stood up, pacing nervously in front of her. "I was going to tell you that I left Kathy." He took a deep breath and stopped moving, freezing right in front of her. "I was going to tell you why I left Kathy."
She turned away, already knowing that part of the story, finding her voice soft and unrecognizable and laced with heartbreak when she spoke. "You left her because you're seeing someone else." It hurt. It made sense. But it didn't explain why he'd hesitated to tell her, not unless he knew how she felt about him. That was a possibility she didn't want to consider simply because it fucking hurt.
"No, Liv, I left her because I'm in love with someone else."
She tried to hide her sniffle, telling herself that he'd wanted to avoid an emotional scene with her, admonishing herself for proving to him that he'd been right to not want to face her.
And then he was on his knees before her, gripping her hands in his. "I know you think I'm out of my fucking mind, Olivia, but I swear to you, I was there because I wanted to tell you that I love you, not because I wanted to hurt you."
Shock kept her staring at him. Shock kept her mouth from making a sound.
"I would never hurt you. Never." He let go of her hands, moving to stroke her face instead. "I didn't want to tell you like this. Hell, I wasn't even sure I should tell you at all, but I was there and I want you to know why rather than thinking I did something to hurt you."
She searched his eyes, looking for something that might prove his words true or false. All she saw was desperation, probably mirrored from her own stare. But god how she wanted to believe him, to finally understand that his body's response to hers had been steeped in love and longing, the same as hers, and not some sick, perverted desire to possess her.
He leaned forward, finding her lips again, slowly, gently, kissing her, trying to convey his meaning with touch rather than sound. He pulled back before it could lead where the other kisses had, resting his forehead against hers. "I chickened out. I realized with that bastard coming after you the timing was so wrong and you kept accusing me of all this shit that I wasn't doing-"
She pulled back, still uncertain, but needing to make her own point. "Those sleeping pills, Elliot, they make you forget shit. You need to stop taking them. You scare me when you take them."
He nodded, reaching to hold her hands again. "Ok, ok, I'll stop taking them. If they bother you, I won't take them anymore." He blinked back the tears in his eyes, trying to hold her stare at the same time. "Please believe me, Liv. I didn't hurt you."
Her face crumbled as the thought fell out of her mouth, knowing it would crush the man she loved. "What if you just don't remember?"
She could feel the shudder than ran through him through their joined hands. She hated that she'd caused it, that she'd caused him to hurt, that she couldn't be as sure of his innocence as he was, that she was causing him to question that belief.
"I'd have to want to hurt you, Liv, and I don't." He squeezed her hand, encouraging her to meet his eyes. "These blackouts you say I've been having, have I ever hurt you during one?"
She opened her mouth to argue everything, every single thing that had happened in the previous weeks, but he lifted his hand, pressing his index finger against her lips.
"The times you absolutely know it was me."
Not, she knew, when someone wearing a ski mask and his cologne tried to rape her.
She searched her memory, thinking about the trip out to the bar, the night he'd been in her apartment, the night before when he'd kept her from freezing to death. He'd touched her each and every time. He'd been all over her, perfectly willing to fuck her during two of them, albeit mostly with her participation. She'd seen him drugged and intoxicated and all he'd done was try to pursue something he claimed to have left his wife for, something, had she known he'd left his wife, she wouldn't have minded in the least. To the best of her knowledge, he'd simply acted like a man who wanted her and was too out of it to realize he was going about it the wrong way. She couldn't even say the sudden, extreme flares of his temper were at all unlike him.
She shook her head, her mind reeling. If he was telling the truth, if he really hadn't hurt her, if he'd really been as much a victim as she was, he'd never forgive her. And she couldn't say that she didn't deserve it for doubting him.
"Shit!"
She jerked out of her thoughts, realizing Elliot was staring out the window. For a moment, she thought perhaps salvation, like the police or even the stalker Elliot claimed wasn't him, had arrived, someone who might end the constant questioning confusion in her head. But she saw nothing.
"It's snowing again." He stood up, grabbing hold of her arm and pulling her to her feet. "Ok, I have to lock you somewhere. Where do you want to wait?"
"What?" All the thoughts of poor, persecuted Elliot fell away as he manhandled her once again, dragging her halfway across the room.
"I don't have time to play here, Liv. We need gas for the van and for the generator or it's going to get very cold, very fast. Living room or bedroom?"
"You're going to leave me here? What if you can't get back?" She was trying to fight him, but his hand easily circled her forearm, making any attempts painful.
"The sooner I go, the sooner I get back. I'm not going to abandon you up here. You're making this harder than it needs to be."
Pain or not, she tried jerking her arm out of his grasp, quite dismayed when he abruptly let her go, causing her to fall right on her ass. "Ow, shit, that hurt!" He didn't respond, just glared at her and waited for her to climb to her feet. "What the hell? You think I'm going to make it easy for anyone to restrain me? You must have me confused with some other dumbass you know." She backed out of his reach. "Yeah, well, fuck you!"
"Olivia, if you think I'm going to trust you not to run off and try to freeze yourself to death, think again. You don't trust me anymore, fine. Then I don't trust you either." He lunged toward her, grabbing the loose cuff before she could pull it away.
"What are you? Eight? 'You don't trust me, I don't trust you' nanny-nanny-boo-boo?" She wasn't sure that mocking him was a good idea, but he had that effect on her. She kind of wanted to stomp her feet and stick out her tongue.
Of course, when she thought about doing that, it immediately dredged up the response she figured she'd get. And having the man thoroughly distract her from the argument by sucking her tongue into his mouth wasn't entirely an unwelcome thought.
His eyes narrowed as he looked at her, his frustration turning to pure anger in an instant and he pushed her against the wall. "I'm not playing."
She couldn't help it, her hormones were on overload as soon as his body pressed against hers. Her head fell back and she moaned, too turned on by the man who'd just confessed how much he loved her to care that she was making an ass out of herself. She felt the way he pressed into her, his body reacting in kind, his hands reaching for her waist, pulling her into him.
She moaned again, her fingers digging into his shirt. "Jesus, El." She waited for him to kiss her, her toes already curling in anticipation.
She waited and waited and waited.
And then she opened her eyes, finding his staring back at her, more rage than attraction radiating from them. "El?"
He grabbed her arm again, yanking her fingers from his shirt, pulling her roughly, not stopping until he pushed her backwards onto the bed again. "What did I tell you about teasing me, Olivia?"
Oh, god, he was mad. Really, really mad. She was scared, but at the same time, she'd never wanted him more.
He leaned down over her, keeping his feet planted on the floor. "You think this is a fucking joke?"
She looked up at him, trying to calm her emotions, realizing that he was perceiving a slight in her undeniable physical response. "No, no, it's not."
His hands were locked around the sweatshirt she was wearing, keeping her half lifted from the bed. "I told you not to fucking tease me, Olivia. What the hell is wrong with you? You want to keep playing with fire until you get burned just so you can throw it in my face?"
She shook her head, lifting her hands to his, trying to work herself free of his grip. "I'm not teasing you, I swear." She felt her embarrassment breaking through the haze of desire, her cheeks flushing red. "I'm sorry. I wasn't teasing, I swear to you!"
Shaking, Elliot released her, letting her fall back on the bed while he slowly pulled himself upright. Olivia didn't dare move, afraid to call attention to herself, afraid that, having seen his temper take over so completely once again, she'd been too quick to trust him.
And when his hands moved to hook the loose cuff around the bed post, she feared she'd been played again.
He sounded tired and spent when he spoke. "I won't be gone long."
Of all the sneaky, twisted, cruel things to do to her, he'd managed to find the one that would absolutely make her nuts – leaving her there alone. She sat up, staring at him accusingly. "You're just going to leave me here?"
He shook his head, his narrowed eyes and the distance he kept from her telling her that he didn't trust her. "Yeah."
"What if someone really is after me?" Should his claims be proven true, she'd prefer they weren't proven true by having someone climb on top of her again, this time when she was handcuffed to the bed and unable to get away.
His eyes clouded over again, as though he really despised that she was casting doubt on his words. "Someone really is after you, Olivia, and I assure you, it's not me."
She wanted to point out that his mistreatment of her hardly made him look innocent, but she knew pissing him off wasn't going to help. "What if he followed us? What if he comes after me? I'm defenseless!" Of course, if he handed her gun over, she might shoot him in the balls. And he probably knew that.
"How about you annoy him to death? You've damn near succeeded with me." He sighed and looked down, revealing his guilt and misgivings to someone who knew him as well as she did. "Look, I'm not taking you to the grocery store. You'll cause trouble and I don't need anymore trouble."
"No, I won't!" Few things bugged her as much as the idea of being left helpless and chained in the middle of fucking desolation.
"Yes, you will. You can't help it. You are trouble." He glanced up, meeting her eyes long enough to flash a hint of a smile. "Forget it. I won't be long, I promise."
"You're a bastard. A heartless fucking prick, you know that?"
He grinned then, half turning away from her. "See? That's exactly why you're not coming." And then he stepped through the door, closing it behind him, leaving her there to glare at the ceiling while she tried to deny she wouldn't willingly fuck him if he asked her right then.