The Key (Sanguinem Emere) (3 page)

The rustle of his silken shirt against my bare back where the cocktail dress Delilah did me up in dips, eases my tension, as the need to have him spill his guts is subdued by his aptitude at soothing me, which becomes achingly apparent.

Obfuscated by envious shadows, his skin lounges against my own as he strokes my face. When I close my eyes, I ignore the hidden objects surrounding us and I can veritably feel him moving around my body, surveying me in the night, even though he surely can see nothing but ink, the same as I. I reach out towards him, but fingers clutch at my wrist and push it back down by my side as those frozen-silk lips trace the passages and cliffs of my face again and a whisper carries to my ears from the cleft of my cheek, just as it dips to my neck, “Yes, Eva?”

“I have questions,” My hesitation is rife through my own mumble, I can hear it and it vexes me, much the same as the slight lilt to my words damns me, a moan almost, a signal of my forfeit in this fight.

“You do.” His voice, lilting sweetly to my ears makes my skin twitch and my blood sing as I feel it thrumming to my fingertips where it pulses beneath the pads of my flesh.

I want to touch him, but his bones still encasing my fluttering hands still me and I sigh beneath his lips as they nuzzle at my throat, condemning me to the annals of the story-less. I can feel my glorious future as a killer of reputations being stifled under his hands and, for the first time in weeks, I am aware of his reluctance to answer my, as yet, unasked questions.

It doesn’t bother me, though.

And his proximity doesn’t concern me anymore.

The implied scandal from Delilah’s Socialite acquaintances does not distress me.

His lips open at my throat and his tongue stirs a pent-up moan deep within as he grasps my chin in his hand and pulls at my flesh with his mouth, his tongue. The vague, bruising pain is intense and fleeting as the sensation of his body, writhing against me, trying to draw me in overwhelms my mind and causes the polarity in my head to shift.

I can’t quite sense where I begin and he ends. He fills me, he flows through me. Like a spirit of transcendence. For the moment it doesn’t matter that he is a billionaire and I am a simple reporter. That he has been known to associate with only the most beautiful women, and I am just me.

He pulls me to him in the dark, in a dance of refracted, ambient light and shadows jittering across his skin.

I am alone with him here, his flesh moulded to mine and his serenity distilling my own.

The rest of the world can fade, for all I care.

SUNDAY 16 November 2008… 07:48

The unobtrusive heartbeat of the electronica looping through Delilah’s stereo chimes with the gentle twirling of the fifties-style ceiling fan above me. My mind follows the pattern of the fan circling over the room, cutting into the dim illumination spilling across the roof in rotund, glowing pools. The music becomes a mantra as the current track plays over again. Come to think of it, it may have been playing before this as well. Accidentally repeating.

Am I dreaming?

“Eva, are you even listening to me?”

Lazily I glance over to Bram sitting beside me, “I wasn’t aware we were talking,” I mutter embarrassedly as I try to sit up, but an arm around my waist pulls me back down and I turn in Dimitri’s embrace, purring softly as he kisses my chest, the curl of his beard tickling at my skin, nuzzling up towards my neck.

“Things haven’t been the same, Eva. Your brother worries about you.” He hesitates, “I miss you.”

“It hasn’t been that long, silly. And besides, you brought it on yourself, Bram,” I whisper into Dimitri’s hair as he pulls distractingly at my shirt.

“Yes. Yes. I know. But I said I was sorry.” His whiny voice is but background music to the thrum of joy I feel at Dimitri’s fingers, “And I knew it was a mistake. And you have to admit, Cecily is far more attractive than you. At times I wonder how you two could possibly share a gene pool.”

I look up from Dimitri’s affections at those piercing, blue eyes I had always wanted to drown in, but could never really bring myself to love. “Is that supposed to make me fly back to you, Sweetheart?”

“Just an observation. I don’t expect you ever to come back to me. In fact I don’t see much of a future for you with this guy, either.”

“Well that settles it then, at least we understand one another,” I manage to respond in a near moan as Dimitri’s hands retreat from my body.

Bram grumbles from somewhere far away, “No, you don’t get it at all.”

Dimitri leans over me, cutting off my view of the ceiling, “There is no one more beautiful than you, Eva. You are my favourite.”

He hands me a glass of wine and I drink the strangely sweet bouquet as affection for him overwhelms me.

“Have a nice life,” Bram snipes from his dark, cold corner.

I force my mind up through the stifling folds of sleep, semi annoyed with myself. Why think of Bram? Why? I finally have a perfect gentleman in my clutches – my heart catches in my throat – and I spoil it with dreams of an ex. A bad ex. An ex that slept with my sister of all people. And that trip of not being as attractive as my insipidly perfect, china-doll sister? Typical. And here I thought I was done with berating myself and my appearance because of what men may think. At least even my sub-conscious has picked up on how valued I am in Dimitri’s eyes. He will never betray me that way. He can have any girl, but it’s me he’s chosen.

I reach above my head and stretch. My eyes close involuntarily as shudders of pleasure traverse my spine and creep through my arms and legs. Small nuances of pain twinge in my abdomen and thighs. A Cheshire smile crawls over my lips.

I swing my legs over the side of the bed and for a moment, confusion rifles through my head. How much did I drink? No, I only had one or two. Where the hell am I? This is isn’t my place and it sure as hell is not Delilah’s. Delilah’s apartment is nice, but she’s not nearly wealthy enough to afford the heirlooms and antiques that are scattered across a myriad of surfaces in here. Oil paintings, with a suspiciously older veneer than what I am used to, bedeck the walls. Beautiful statuettes and figurines stand atop artistically wrought furniture of polished wood I can’t name. The bed I find myself in is carved into a four poster sans-hangings and lavished in bottle green and cream linen, matching the velvet textured paint of the walls.

The smell of jasmine and some other sweet-scented creature sifts through the room. Arrayed in various shadowed hiding places around me, I spy foliage disguising itself as furniture. That explains the scent. As does the small, crystal vase beside the bed with a cutting of jasmine hanging sadly from its stalk.

My keen intuitive mind concludes that I must be in Dimitri’s house and a savage pleasure warms my heart.

A knock at my door distracts me from my musings on the elegance and sophistication surrounding me just as I reach my hand towards my cell phone placed politely on the mahogany cabinet beside the bed.

“Are you awake?” A familiarly, intoned voice calls from the door.

“Cecily?”

The door opens and my sister bobs in, carrying a tray with a china tea pot, two cups and a bowl of what looks like biscuits on it. She sways towards the open side of the bed and sets the tray down, expertly pouring a stream of golden red from the pot. She hands me one of the delicate, ornamental cups and sits pertly on the edge of the bed, waiting for me to accept the offering.

“What are you doing here?” I mutter, trying to comprehend the situation at hand. If I am in Dimitri’s home then why is my sister here with me? She’s never met him.

Has she?

Wait. There was something. Dimitri. Hue Hefner. Could the rumours be accurate? If so, am I now a part of some sort of harem for the rich and famous Dimitri Kron who is said to keep girls like party favours? One to remind him of each eventful gathering? A chill seeps through my chest like heartburn and my eyes well up so that I quickly swipe at them, trying to keep Cecily from noticing my discomfort. How can I have even thought that? Dimitri is attractive, rich and generous. It’s his prerogative to do whatever he likes. I should just be grateful that he sequestered me here. It proves how much he thinks of me.

Oh god. What am I saying? I’ve become one of those girls overnight. The type of female that women like me feel pity for.

And how did my dear, devoted and oh-so-charming sister arrive here to greet me first thing in the morning? Is she now competition once again? With her Chinese bobbed hair spun from obsidian silk and her sparkling brown eyes set above a pert little nose and pouting lips. All this exquisitely compliments her inherently natural figure, curved and full where beauty calls for it and lithe where men will notice. Compared with me and my boring brown hair, boring brown eyes, boring complexion verging on pallid next to her alabaster. Not to mention my boring, dumpy figure which my mother always tells me is because I had not attained her sterling genetic make-up, as Cecily did. The thought of me being any competition for my little sister makes me scoff.

“Eva,” Cecily’s expression falls from the chipper, smiling visage that waltzed in here, “I thought you’d be a bit happier to see me. Or at least I had hoped so. It’s been months and I haven’t heard from you.”

True. But from the confusion etched into the perfect crease of her brow, I can deduce that my sister is unaware of why I have been avoiding her. Shame floods me. Have I been punishing her since June without her knowing why? But she must know. Or she must have guessed that Bram confessed what he and she had done on my birthday? If nothing else, she should at least have the decency to be riddled with guilt for what she did to me.

“I wanted to call you, I swear! But Alex told me not to; he said you were having problems at work? Something about you going through a difficult time, right now.”

Our older brother, Alexander had been the one to pull me through the mess with Bram. The two had been good friends, part of the reason that Bram and I had started seeing each other. On the night that I uncovered the truth, I had driven to Alexander’s house at three am and he had obliged my snot and tears and alcoholism with blurry, exhausted eyes and admonitions against Bram, who, to my current knowledge, he hasn’t seen since. When he broached the subject of how to approach Cecily, I had clammed up and I assume that was when he took it upon himself to fabricate this lie about me having work-related stress. In a way it’s just an omission of important facts on his part; Bram and I did work together for the same publication. But the day after the drama unfolded, I quit, to the impressive surprise of my editor.

But Cecily’s big, brown eyes, swimming with uncertainty, make me want to reach out and hold her like my baby sister again. Somehow, she has always been capable of making me feel like any small offence on her part is just a misunderstanding on mine.

I sigh, a little frustrated with my lack of will. I think this is why I never wanted to come right out and accuse her of sleeping with my boyfriend in the first place.

“It’s fine, Honey,” I take my sister’s delicate hand in mine as a knot begins to form in my chest, one I thought I’d done away with over the last few months as the betrayal left me to grow numb and uncaring instead of the quivering, depressed mess I had been in June.

“I suppose I should have called, too.”

Cecily’s delicate features un-cloud as the sun shines through her gloomy demeanour in a brilliant smile. The spiteful snake in my mind squirms uncomfortably as I find myself torn between having missed her exuberance and wanting to crawl as far away from her as possible. I can already feel the darkness of June’s suffering clogging up my chest like a cancer; growing and inching through my cells until there will be nothing left of me but bitterness. I never loved him, but he was a good friend, a stable companion, and someone that I cared enough for to sob uncontrollably over when the truth was aired. The incident had been influential enough that my writing had become affected and my career had suffered the consequences.

I accept the cup from her and take a generous sip of the tea.

Instantly my stomach rebels and I clamber off the bed, holding my hand over my suddenly bile-filled mouth as I rush through a door leading off to what I hope is a bathroom.

Just in time, I lift the toilet lid as my stomach heaves again and a mixture of substances flows into the bowl, red from the wine, ochre, and something else. The smell makes me heave again, but my stomach has emptied of everything I had in it. I didn’t eat anything last night. Too nervous. A blessing in disguise, it seems.

The bare padding of Cecily’s footsteps sounds behind me as my hair is lifted from my face and something cold and wet is pressed to my neck.

After a few moments of coaxing, she manages to uncurl my strained, whitened fingers from the edges of the bowl and pulls me unsteadily to my feet. My body feels limp, incapable of holding my weight and where her cold fingers touch my skin it burns and I shy away from her touch.