A Beautiful Nightmare: A Novel Page 9

  “Were you watching something?” I looked around the living room for the remote. In the dark, I located it on the coffee table. I reached over to pluck it up, pointing it at the television.

  Nothing happened. I pressed down on the guide button, and that too didn’t change the blue screen. I flipped it over, trying to find what kind of remote it was when I found it. It had a sensor, the same kind that was on the walls controlling the doors. The remote didn’t recognize me. Why wasn’t I allowed to use the remote? What about a tv would pose a threat? My eyes traced the setup, the cords—there were no cords. The video games … the video games. There was Wi-Fi somewhere in order for him to connect to his live games. Why hadn’t I thought of that before? Wi-Fi meant connecting with the outside world, a way out. My heart sped up.

  I looked to find him watching me.

  In answer to my soundless thoughts, he shook his head once.

  “Give me your hand.” I wiggled the remote.

  He opened his fist on his lap. My excitement slightly fizzled at the action, but I kept up hope that he was downplaying his lack of interest to trick me. I set the remote in his hand and it blinked once. I pressed random buttons to no avail. The remote wasn’t programmed for me. Which meant the remote was dangerous.

  “Interesting.” I gave up—for now—and settled on the white couch. “You need your medicine.”

  “I need you more.”

  “You can’t stay sick for me.”

  His silence was louder than his reply.

  That he would rather subject himself to this for me made me unsettlingly guilty. Dash would never reach a place where he was one hundred percent “normal,” but then again, who would? Whoever got to that place was the same person who reached perfection and figured out their purpose in life. Those with broken pieces, mental illnesses, or for the lost—they all had to find a balance between the good and the bad. But with medicine Dash could have more good days, which made the bad ones easier to handle. Locking up a woman wasn’t a good day.

  “What medicine did you bring with you?” I couldn’t imagine him being able to stockpile them, but his father was the kingpin, and he’d often times had to go the underground route, since it was unheard of for someone in the gang to partake in therapy.

  I slid my hand over the back of the couch and settled it on his neck, touching the dark hair at the base. I had never been in a position to simply touch him. It was always an hour meeting, ropes, tears, and disgust.

  “Your antipsychotics?” His jaw jumped. “Your mood stabilizers?” His neck bulged. “Your anxiety meds work well in a pinch, I thought? Those don’t alter you too much?”

  The hand on his lap became a fist.

  “I know your sleeping pills can sometimes make it worse, but they don’t always. Maybe you could try—”

  “I’m not taking my fucking pills!” His roar shook the walls. “I can’t have you when I take my pills. I’m not me, and you’re not you, when I’m on them. Everything we have exists in my brain, and if have to suffer to keep us, then I will. Don’t bring it up again.” His cold eyes bored into me, daring me to push him, to unman him.

  A bolt of fear slithered through me. I prepared myself for his fist. For the pain. I tensed my body as I waited for Dash to do to me what Denny had. But Dash wasn’t Denny, and for the first time I was thankful. They weren’t the same men whatsoever. If Dash hit me, it wouldn’t be a backhand. It would be a break.

  His eyes simmered. “Do you hear me?”

  “Don’t hit me,” I whispered. My stupid heart commandeered my lips. “Not you. I don’t think I could take it if you hit me.”

  His face broke, but his eyes were still angry. The shadows on his face were heightened by the blue of the television. Truths began to filter into my brain, parts of me I didn’t know, foreign pieces of my soul. As I stared into his eyes all I could think about was how I didn’t want him to be like Denny. I didn’t want to lie so much that I believed them.

  I didn’t believe Dash’s lies, because to him they were the only truth that meant something. In the deep dark holes of my insides, something wanted that.

  His top lip curled in disgust. “I am not going to hit you. I’m not like the piece of shit you chose over me.” Rage emanated from him. “Don’t bring up my pills again.”

  As soon as his outburst was over, he reverted back to his half-slumped position. I tried to shake it all off. I was good at rolling with the storm. But I felt slightly … frail. The days by myself, his tongue between my thighs, and then his face corded with rage.

  I sat back, caught in his whirlwind. “Well, can we at least talk about what happened?”

  “What?” he mumbled weakly.

  “What?” I gawked at him. “You were a freak back there.”

  He shrugged, unimpressed. “I’ve never been a fan of boring sex.”

  “We didn’t have sex,” I reminded him.

  “We will.” There was no doubt in his voice. “Don’t lie,” he snapped, because we both knew I was about to. “You want me inside of you.”

  My breath left me. “So deep inside of me.” My stomach fluttered and my core clenched. Damn it. Please don’t fall for this. It’s just sex. It’s just Dash McKing.

  He turned to me, eyes glittering. “Truth?”

  I shook my head emphatically. “No.”

  “Truth,” he determined, ignoring my plea. “You’re afraid to sleep with me, because you know once you do, you’ll be mine.”

  “I can’t be yours. Don’t you see that?” I peeked around my walls. “Maybe before all of this. But this makes it impossible. Don’t you see that? How can we be anything after what you did to me? I’m not going to wake up and smell the coffee, Dash. There won’t be an us.”

  “There is only us.” No reason. No understanding.

  “What’s honestly going to happen? I forget how you imprisoned me? Took me from my life? Locked me in a skyscraper with no way out?”

  “What life did I take you from? How much longer were you going to last, Kinley? Denny would have pulled the plug eventually. He would have taken your business, your life. He would have left you all alone with nothing.”

  It was almost as if Dash knew it was coming. How could he know that? I stared into his stunning entrapping eyes and contemplated his timing. Why now? Why did he take me now? He could have been waiting for this place to be finished, but he could have taken me anywhere. Prisons needed walls, not gold.

  “Why would he have left me?”

  “It was coming. It doesn’t take a genius to figure that out. He came to me six months ago. Remember that,” he added, his eyes boring into me. “I am not the bad guy. I saved you, my queen. We’ll exist in this kingdom until you’re mine and it’s safe to leave. Later isn’t here yet. We’ll work on it when we get there.”

  My mind churned. Safe? Why wasn’t it safe? Was it dangerous for me, or dangerous for Denny? Or Dash? I licked my lips and felt queasy. This was a nightmare again.

  Why would you lock a woman in a skyscraper? There were so many other places in the world we could have faded from everyone. Why hadn’t Dash taken me away from the city he took me in?

  How did I sleep beside Denny for six months, knowing I was lying, but unknowing his were larger?

  “Stop,” he whispered, reaching over to remove a stray hair from my temple. He tucked it behind my ear and held me tenderly. “You’re mine, Kinley. Fight all you want. Fight me, fight yourself. I will wait.” He leaned close and pressed his warm silky lips to mine. “Are you sore?”

  I nodded against his mouth, kissing him back ever so slightly.

  “Were you sore the first time we made love?” He caressed my lips softly.

  I moved closer, drawn to their heat. “I could feel where you’d been for days.”

  “Truth?”

  I moaned against him, tasting his sexy soft lips. “What?”

  “You want me inside of you right now.”

  I lifted onto my knees. His hands settled on my waist, br
inging me down on his lap. In this position our chests were pressed together. His liquid gold eyes were so close they shimmered. The warm wet taste of his mouth made mine pool with saliva. I had thoughts that were begging me to get away, but I shut them up with the truth. “I want you so deep inside of me you alter my insides.”

  With a low growl, he gave me my gift. He kissed me deep and slow, tasting me with every stroke of his lips. He urged my mouth open with his tongue, and the sky opened up, reaching for me. I threaded my fingers in his hair and held on, swallowing the delectable taste of him like wine. I was drunk in seconds, high on the taste and feel of him.

  His hands were hot on my back, roaming my spine. I brought mine down to feel his chest, and the hard muscle I knew lay beneath it. I wanted to feel him, to get my licks in while I was thinking straight, or not thinking, or doing a combination of both that allowed me to straddle the man in my arms but still doubt the way he held me.

  “Truth?” I breathed, drinking his saliva.

  He shook his head and pulled away, eyes hungry. “I’ve only told you the truth.”

  I leaned away from the fire in his gaze, settling on his lap. “You keep things from me.” We both knew he was keeping things from me. My eyes flashed to his side of the room. The remote. Then all around, because there was a way out, and he was hiding that too.

  He licked his lips contemplatively. “I keep some things from you,” he agreed. “But never my feelings. Never my life.” And then he cracked, his depression taking over so quickly I gasped at the darkness that slithered into his eyes. “Do you have any idea what that does to me? How painful those six months were? I grew up never being good enough for my father, the defect of his life, my mother felt the same. Every woman I’ve ever felt anything for has left, giving me the same look of disgust and pity. But you, my queen, have never looked at me like that. Even now, you won’t. You hurt me too. I haven’t been … well since we slept together. You went home to your Denny, ignored me for months, drove me insane with your ignorance.” Tears filled his eyes, and the pain he had felt bubbled up, so deep, so vast—not unlike my own.

  The six months after our hour together were hell for me too. I loved him, I wanted him, I just didn’t know how to have him and still keep what I currently had. I couldn’t have Dash and Denny, keep my practice, have the man so unlike any I’ve ever had, and then Denny, the man who gave me my dream. That you suffered every day to have, something whispered. Denny held my dream over my head as ransom. Dash just wanted me to believe his.

  I slid my hands from his chest to grasp his handsome tortured face. His eyes were dripping their pain all over me. “I’m sorry, Dash. I’m so sorry. I didn’t know what to do. I shouldn’t have slept with—

  “No, don’t regret me. Please,” he begged, grabbing me and crushing me to his chest. He sobbed into my hair. “Don’t doubt me, Kin.”

  “I don’t doubt you,” I revealed, meaning every word. “You were the only thing that got me through the past year.”

  I hugged him to me too, wanting the support, the contact. Dash’s emotions were so intense and overwhelming, in contrast to his reserved wall he hid behind. I could feel it all over him, and as much as I tried to push the truth away, it was a feeling I myself ran from. Too dark, like our pasts were trying to drag us back, because when you ran, the past only grew, growing impatient as it waited to take us back to the places we feared.

  My walls began to crumble. Letting Dash in for a few minutes wouldn’t hurt me so much, would it? Knowing him, he’d probably ruin it eventually. And I wanted it too. I wanted him too.

  I curled up on his lap and held him the way I always wanted, sighing into his neck when he did the same. So tight, strong, like we never wanted to let go. We were so close together I could feel his breaths, the sigh of relief. Our bodies were one. We were separate lost pieces on our own, but together we made one person who could navigate the rocks raining down on us.

  “Why did you do this to me?” I sobbed against him, letting everything I felt out.

  His tears trailed down my shoulder. “I had to have you. You never would have come to me. You would have run when things with Denny failed. I would have lost you, lost myself. So I took you. You want to be here, don’t you? In my arms? Protected? Loved? I can give you what you never had, Kin. I can give you what you lie to have. Nothing you and I ever do will be a lie.”

  I held him harder, wanting to crawl his body and exist in this moment. Not in my lies, not in his transgressions, not in a man I spent four years trying to keep, a man I lied about every single day, because Denny never made me feel the way Dash had right now. Like it was safe to be myself.

  Fear slammed into me. Without the walls I had built I would be … who? A woman I didn’t know?

  “Shh,” he soothed. He held me tighter, his protective arms hiding me. “You’re safe with me, my queen.”

  For hours we sat that way. His tears ebbed and soon mine did as well. I rested in a way where I could smell his skin, his hair, his heart. “Dash?”

  “Hmm?”

  “What happened to that cologne you always wore?”

  He seemed to think about it. “I didn’t bring it with me.”

  “Oh.” I ran my nose over his pulse. “I miss it.” I miss you.

  “I have others.” He didn’t seem concerned.

  Why was I?

  Why was I in his arms?

  Why wasn’t I moving?

  Why did I want him inside of me right now?

  His arms fell away from my body and his head lolled back. His long pale throat barley moved under his slow breathing. He stared up at the ceiling with gleaming unfocused eyes. I could feel it again. This dark sense of depression that felt like shadows and darkness.

  “Dash?” I whispered.

  I was used to this, at least I had experience. But the atmosphere had been different. We had been different. I sat across from him at my desk and he was a patient. I had the answers to help him. Now he had all the power and I was his. I felt unnervingly helpless, stuck in a mansion with a mentally ill man as he rode the wave of a depression so dark even the light in the room fed off of it.

  I crawled from his lap and sat on the coffee table.

  “Are you hungry?”

  “No.”

  “Are you tired?”

  “No.”

  “Want to have a session?”

  His head lolled to the other side to catch my eye. “Really?”

  I smiled at his expression. For the first time he looked unsure. “Really.”

  “I don’t really have anything to talk about. I have you. Anything else can be forgotten.”

  The backs of my eyes burned, but I blinked the influx to cry away. “Dash. I’ve heard you talk for a year. There’s far too much inside of you to simply be forgotten. I am not a prize. I am not a balm. I can’t fix anything right now. All I can do is—” I looked down at my toes. “This.” I gazed at him from under my lashes, using the blonde hairs as a shield. “You’re not thinking clearly right now. Maybe if we consider taking your med—”

  He bolted up and hopped over the back of the couch. With a fast punch at his sensor, his door opened up. I caught sight of a black wall before he disappeared inside and the door slid shut. I sat there, gazing in confusion, when a moment later the door reopened and Dash came barreling through it with a box in his hands. Something familiar rattled inside, something that made my heart drop.

  He set the box down on the kitchen counter, and then lifted an orange bottle from inside. Then he met my eyes and twisted the top, pouring his pills down the sink.

  “No!” I jumped over the back of the couch and headed for him. I threw myself over the counter and fought with his large hands. I was able to catch a handful of little blue pills and the bottle before he was reaching for another. “Stop. I’m sorry.” More pills fell down the sink. “Stop!” My plea came from the bottom of my soul. If I ever stood a chance at getting out of here, those pills would have a hand. “I won’t bring i
t up again. No pills. You’re thinking clearly. I’m all you want.”

  With a rage in his eyes that terrified me, he met mine boldly. “I have these here for you. They’re not here for me. Try to manipulate me one more time and they’re all going down the drain. Every last one of them. Do you hear me?” His chest rose and fell under the weight of his anger.

  Those pills were my best friend in this tower. So I gave in. “I hear you.”

  He capped the rest of the pills in his hands and then glared at the ones in my fist. With a shaky hand, I opened my palm over the sink, watching the little blue pills tumble down the drain. He turned the water on and then tossed the bottle back in the box. I caught rows and rows of pills with orange bottles and white caps before he slammed the lid closed and marched it back into his side of the kingdom.

  “We can still have a session,” I said softly when he returned. “Or we can talk. Just you and me. Kinley and Dash. We’ve never done that before.”

  “Whose fault is that?” he grumbled, settling back on the couch. “If you want to talk, talk.”

  “You’re so moody.” I glanced worriedly at the sink before joining him—at a distance—on the couch. “I don’t remember you being this moody.”

  He turned the television on, moving the screen too quickly for my eyes. In seconds we were on a program for movies and shows. “There was no reason to be moody around you. All I felt was peace, lust, sadness, and … heartbreak.”

  Truthfully, I hadn’t felt any different. “I’d like to talk,” I admitted, sounding annoyingly small. I wasn’t small. I may not be overtly apparent, but I wasn’t small. And I had this feeling I would get smaller before I was even remotely apparent at the rate we were going. Psychosis had a cycle that was never-ending if you didn’t do things to stop it, like taking your medicine …

  “Talk.” He picked a movie and put it on, settling down into the couch with a defiant air around him.

  I stared closely at the opening credits suspiciously. “The Wizard of Oz?”