Comfort Object (41 page)

When I finally calmed down, he stared at the fireplace and narrowed his eyes. “I don't get it. Why your books? What did he say?”

“He said he wanted to hurt me. It was because of the ring, because I said it was stupid. He gave me a ring—”

“I heard.” Kyle pursed his lips. “Show it to me.”

I held out my hand like there was a poisonous spider perched on my ring finger, and he took it as if there were. He looked down at the ring a long time, then said under his breath, “What the holy fuck is going on? What did he say about it? What did he say when he gave you this?”

“I don't know. Nothing. He said it's to ward off the stalker.”

Kyle frowned. “Ward her off? Piss her off, more likely. What the fuck? I don't know, Nell. I just don't know.” He dropped my hand and sighed. “What else did he say last night? Why would he burn your books? I thought he was supposed to pay for your college.”

I sniffled. “Maybe he isn't anymore. I told him…I told him I loved him. It really made him furious.”

He looked down at me with a look I couldn't decipher. Surprise, disappointment, something more. “Do you love him?” he asked. “Really?”

“Yes,” I said. “I wish I didn't. He doesn't love me.”

I felt Kyle chuckle, a soft exhalation of breath. “I don't think he knows if he loves you or not. I don't think he has a clue what love really is.”

I looked up at Kyle. I let all our past fights and rivalry fall away. “Help me understand what he wants. Please, Kyle, help me figure this out!”

He looked back at me hard but didn't answer. Instead he said, “I know your real name. We all keep our secrets. Sometimes it's better that way, you know?” He handed me another tissue and headed for the kitchen. “Is ten in the morning too early for a glass of wine?”

We drank wine for a while and talked about things that felt safe. By the time he left to run some errands for Jeremy I was feeling better, but I still dreaded facing Jeremy when he came home.

I walked around the garden outside and tried to imprint the beauty and quiet of the surrounding woods on my mind.
Serenity
. Why couldn't I find it?

We'd be leaving for Italy in a couple of days to stay in downtown Rome, in another slick, antiseptic hotel. I was so grateful for the lovely, quiet villa. I'd always look back on it with wistful fondness, even with the awful things that happened here.

* * *

When he finally got home, I was hiding in the bedroom. I hoped to hear him open the refrigerator for a beer, turn on the TV to watch some show.

But he didn't. He came right to my room and stood in the door. I was sitting in the dark, waiting to hear those three awful words.
You're still here?

But he didn't say anything for a long while, just stood and looked at me while I looked back at him. Finally he came in and tossed a book beside me on the bed.

“Penelope,” he said quietly. “The faithful one.”

I glanced down at the book, knowing what I'd see. Homer's
Odyssey.

“Did Kyle tell you?” I asked.

“Yes. And you're right. I should have figured it out long ago. I would have, if I hadn't been so caught up in myself.”

I bit my lip. I refused to cry. I had cried enough tears over him. He stood against the wall, his face betraying nothing as I leafed absently through the pages. It was a beautiful edition in English and Greek.

“Dutiful, virtuous, prudent Penelope,” he said. “She waited twenty years for her husband to come home. She fended off one hundred and six suitors.”

“One hundred and eight.” I don't know why I corrected him, why I sounded so surly. It was a thoughtful gift, and an apology, I was sure. His apologies were never the typical
I'm sorry
, but I understood them when they came. And now he knew my real name. I should have felt happy. I looked down at the embossed cover, ran my fingers across the intricate design. For a moment I let myself imagine Jeremy picking it out for me, although I knew Kyle would have done it. “Did you read this book?”

“No. I Wiki'd it.” He paused. “Why didn't you leave today?”

“I don't know, Jeremy,” I said. “I guess because I'm the faithful one.”

He frowned. “Did you eat dinner yet?”

I shook my head.

“Come on.” He beckoned me out of bed and out into the main room. We crossed into the kitchen and began to pick through what was there, which wasn't much.

“There's some chicken,” I said. “Lots of fruit.”

“There are eggs,” mumbled Jeremy. “Maybe omelets? French toast?”

I picked up an apple and washed it, then looked in the drawer for a knife. He got out the eggs and put them on the counter, but then he stopped and looked down at the one in his hand, rolling it across his palm. I turned to reach for a bowl and stopped when I felt his hands around my neck.

Not hard. Not like he was choking me or trying to scare me. Just like he wanted to hold my neck in his hands. His careful grasp claimed possession. I stood still and accepted it.
You're mine
. I turned to him, and the tears finally came. He kissed me hard, and I let myself be taken. I reveled in the sensation of his tongue ravaging my mouth. I clung to his solid bulk, and his hard abs felt like a rock wall against my chest.

When his lips left mine, he ran his tongue across each tearful cheek. His fingers loosened, then tightened around my windpipe again. “You're right,” he said. “The ring is stupid. I want to put a fucking collar on you. I never understood until now, your collar thing, but now I understand.” His thumb caressed my pulse, then moved up under my jaw, across my throat. He tilted my head back and breathed down the side of my neck. “I want you to draw breath because I allow it. I want to own you inside and out.”

“You love me,” I whispered, the apple still clutched in one hand, the knife in the other.

“Yes, goddamn it. Maybe. I might.” He sighed. “Fine, I probably do.”

I laughed softly through tears. “You love me. I knew all along that you did.”

“Um, Nell. Put down the knife.” He pried it from my hand and laid it on the counter. “Take off your clothes.”

“Yes, Jeremy.”

We did it there on the kitchen floor. He made me kneel and then pushed me forward from the waist. He positioned himself behind me and grasped my hips in his rough hands. I clenched my pussy in anticipation, and he slid inside without preliminaries. “I want you. You're mine.”

“Yes,” I said. “I'm yours.”

He bit my neck, and I pushed back against him, wanting him closer, deeper. His cock took my pussy in long, urgent strokes. His hands caressed me, running up and down my back before closing around my shoulders. Again and again they returned to my neck. He grasped it, brushed his nails down it from beneath my jaw down to my nape. Each time he released it, I would moan low in my throat, wanting him to encircle it again.

I heard Kyle come home in the middle, heard a mumbled “oh, hi,” as he bypassed the kitchen and went into his room. Jeremy reached down to cup my labia. He squeezed and growled in my ear. “You're mine.” I bucked against his fingers. He swirled them around my clit, pinching it, flicking it as it swelled to life between my pussy lips. He was coarse and insatiable, the same Jeremy I always knew, only there was a difference now.

He loved me.

He admitted it. He loved me, loved me as much as I loved him.

“Jeremy,” I cried. I reached back for him, reached for his hand.

He gripped it and wrapped his arms over mine. He held me clutched to him so tightly that for one strange moment I felt we were not two but one. I was so overcome that I collapsed onto my front, and he followed. As I fell, I skimmed my head on the cabinet. We both heard the dull thud. He hissed and I giggled, but I didn't feel it.

He put one hand over my head where I'd bumped it and fucked me against the floor. My pelvis got hotter and tighter. I was rocked by a wave of pleasure so deep that I felt I was falling. My clit contacted the cold tile. I pressed it into the smooth, slick surface, driven on by his cock filling my walls, and I came hard with a cry. When I felt his own organ start to pulsate inside me, I pulled his hand down from my bumped head and kissed his palm over and over until he told me to stop.

Later we sat side by side on the couch and watched the fire, the same fire I'd watched with tears in my eyes the night before. Now I watched it overcome with happiness, wrapped in Jeremy's arms.

“God,” he said. “Nell, I'm so sorry about your books. I'll find them all again for you. I'll set Kyle on it. Give me a list.”

“I'll subsist on
The Odyssey
for now.”

“Okay, Penelope.”

I laughed. “I hate that name.”

“I like it. I'm going to use it all the time.” He nuzzled me. “It suits you, faithful one.”

“I don't know why I kept it from you for so long.”

“Probably the same reason I couldn't admit that I loved you, even when I gave you a ring.”

I couldn't help giggling. “You asked me to marry you before you could even admit how you felt about me.”

“I know. I'm a mess. Believe me, I know.”

Our laughter died down, and Jeremy took a sip of his beer. “Poor Kyle.”

“I know, having to track down all those books. The Colarusso took me forever to find—”

“No, not the books. He has the most pathetic crush on you,” he said. “How did he take it, when you showed him the ring?”

I laughed again. “What are you drinking? He does not have a crush on me.”

“He certainly does. He has for ages. But he's too vanilla for you, in case you're thinking about leaving me for him.”

“If I didn't leave you after you burned all my favorite books, I don't see myself leaving you for Kyle. He's too young for me anyway.”