The Unrequited Read online

  I’m all dried up. Parched. Every cell in my body hurts for him. For me. For us. His pained words haunt my insides.

  “Why aren’t you home, Thomas?”

  “Because it’s not home when she’s not in it,” he admits quietly.

  I dig my nails into the soft flesh of my belly, trying to translate his emotional agony into my physical discomfort.

  And I’m struck by another epiphany.

  I don’t know what he is to me, but I know what I am to him.

  He needs me. He needs to exert his power over me because his love has made him powerless. He needs me begging because his love has made him a beggar himself. The lust he feels for me comes from the love he feels for her.

  A thick tear skates down from the corner of my eye to my hair. I bite my lip to keep from making any sounds.

  “Go to sleep, Layla.”

  I wipe my nose with the back of my hand and swallow the jagged lump in my throat. “Will you stay on the phone while…while I sleep?” His breath slips before getting heavier. “Please?”

  “Yeah. Okay.”

  I sigh in relief. “Thank you.”

  He hums his assent.

  “Good night.”

  He hums again. I close my grainy eyelids, feeling comforted. I hope he does too.

  Time passes. Questions flit through my mind. Where is Hadley? Is that what I heard through the window that night? Where’s Nicky? He’s my soul mate too.

  “You know, we should get matching bracelets or something. Soul mates should definitely have a matching something,” I mumble, warm and drowsy.

  “Okay, but I don’t like purple.”

  A weak chuckle escapes me and I burrow my nose in my purple blanket. “Don’t worry, it’ll grow on you. I’ll get one for Nicky too.”

  He grunts, as if he’s falling asleep right along with me.

  As I slide deeper into sleep, I feel it in my resting and cozy heart. Thomas and I are meant to be. This thing between us was supposed to happen.

  Because I’m a girl who’s not supposed to be the love of someone’s life, not with my selfishness. I was meant to live in the shadows and secrets. I can be Thomas’ secret, for a little while, at least—until I absorb all of his pain and set him free.

  ________________

  It’s well after midnight, the exact time I spoke to Thomas on the phone a couple of days ago. I should be staying in bed, trying to sleep. I shouldn’t be running toward him, but I am. I have to show him something, something I got for him in a very impulsive decision.

  Oh well, when am I not impulsive?

  The Labyrinth is quiet and sleepy when I enter with a swipe of my ID card. This is the first time I’ve seen it so empty, without its noisy activities. The walls feel intimate, carrying a million secrets, or maybe it’s just me.

  I climb the stairs and walk down the hallway until I’m standing in front of his office door, panting in the cold. My nose is running in a very unflattering manner. I get a handle on my reaction to the freaking winter before I turn the knob; it gives with a soft click.

  He is here.

  My gut told me he would be and there he is by the window, illuminated by the lamp sitting on his empty desk. He turns, a cigarette in his sexy mouth, as he hears me enter. He looks exhausted, his energy extinguished in a certain way I can’t explain.

  He sucks in a drag and blows out a long strand of smoke. In the dismal lighting of the room, with shadows flickering on the wall, he doesn’t even look like he belongs in this world. He is too beautiful, too haunted to be human.

  I swallow, a lengthy shiver rolling through my body as I enter and close the door behind me. My hair must look windblown after running through the streets to get here. My cheeks must be red and flushed, and so must be the skin of my thighs where my fur coat and knee-high boots don’t meet, leaving them bare and unprotected.

  “I want to show you something.”

  I lick my lips and lock the door with a click.

  I’ve always thought of my body as a curse. It has incessant needs, the wrong kind of cravings, but after meeting Thomas, I realized my body could be a tool. It could be his tool.

  So there is no shyness in me when I open the buttons of my coat, staring into his unblinking, unmoving eyes. I watch for his reactions. Does he like my boldness? Hate it? The color of his face is heightened and the lean muscles of his chest twitch as he looks on. It bolsters my courage, gives me reassurance that this is the right thing to do. I part the lapels and roll my shoulders to take the coat off me. It falls to the floor and I jerk at the sensation of my thick curls teasing my naked back.

  Um, yeah…I’m naked—except for the black knee-high boots and, of course, the ankle-length purple polka dot socks under them.

  Goosebumps coarsen my skin as I stand in front of him for his perusal. My curves are slight. My breasts are small and my waist is tiny. In preparation for tonight, I shaved everything so my skin is smooth and pale, and my cunt bare.

  His gaze sweeps over my face and then skates down, down and down, and then he stops. I know what he’s staring at. I did it for him.

  The tic in his jaw throws me for a loop. Is he angry or horny? I can’t tell. I hope for the latter. I hope tonight is the night he ruins me, steals away my naiveté and finds some peace in it.

  In a snap, he throws the cigarette out the window and shuts it, muffling the sound of snow-laden wind. He faces me again, and with his eyes trained on my stomach, he prowls forward. My core clenches at his lazy but charged steps.

  He stops a few feet away and reaches out his hand. I gasp as his cold fingers touch my quivering stomach, the reddened skin around my newly-gotten tattoo. It’s the circle of a flame around my navel, and I switched out my belly button ring for a sapphire-colored stud.

  His thumb moves over the shape of the flames and I whisper, “It’s the color of your eyes.”

  The flames are blue, just like his gaze. I wait for the shame to pour out of me. I’m showing the guy I haven’t even slept with that I’ve permanently marked him on my body. You don’t get any clingier than that.

  But I feel no shame. I feel no need to hide from Thomas, not like the way I’ve always felt with Caleb, hiding my feelings, watching him from the shadows.

  “I… You remind me of some kind of fire-breather,” I explain further.

  Thomas snags my gaze with his intense ones. They mimic an inferno with savage emotions as he comes down to his knees.

  “Thomas?” I clutch his shoulders to stay steady.

  He breathes heavily, noisily, as if in reply, and then his mouth is on me. His tongue lashes over the jeweled stud as he wraps his arms around my waist to bring me closer.

  My head falls back on a low and heavy moan, and my hands travel up from the swell of his shoulders to his thick, silky hair. I thread my fingers through the strands and pull on them when his open-mouth kisses and the suction of his hot mouth become too much.

  Is it possible to get wet from someone sucking on your tummy? Maybe it’s crazy, but who cares? I’m wet, and getting wetter by the second as he laps at my skin with hungry, ravenous licks. The area around my tattoo is still tender, and his tiny nips make me feel like he’ll break my fragile body open. The thought oozes out a thick drop of cum from my clenching pussy.

  Thomas growls as if he knows what my core is up to. I’m riding the high caused by his needy grunt when my back crashes into the door, and my leg is lifted before settling on his shoulder.

  He kisses and bites my lower tummy, sucking in the soft skin, leaving what I’m sure are red marks all over. I look down just as he scrapes his stubble on the inside of my lifted thigh, and cradles it between his arm and his neck. The action is simultaneously arousing and tender, and my eyes are very close to watering. He splays the fingers of his free hand on my other thigh and parts it open. My pussy clenches shyly at being on display before him, making his shoulders bob with a long breath.

  Thomas looks up at me, his eyes dark and smoky, burnt all the way t
hrough with lust. “I’m going to suck on your pussy, Layla.”

  They’re the very first words he’s spoken since I came to him. They sound raspy and guttural, ripped from the depths of his soul. They are enough to make me come and my eyes strain to flutter closed, but I keep them open. I want to see him. I want to see the beginnings of my ruination.

  “Okay,” I whisper unnecessarily.

  Still staring at me with a fevered look, he nuzzles his nose just over my pubic bone, sending electric shocks to my core. Slowly, he moves down, his lips breathing over my skin. The first contact of his mouth to my freshly-shaven pussy is a shock. It sears me. I feel it everywhere, inside and out.

  Thomas sweeps his tongue from the clit right down to the entrance that is aching, has been aching for him. At my moan, he burrows his face closer, rubbing his nose, his mouth into my wetness. He takes a long sniff, smelling me, breathing me in. It’s enough to make me go crashing to the floor, and I would if he wasn’t holding me in his arms.

  With a gusty breath, he latches on to my clit and sucks. I moan out his name, my head thumping on the door and my lower body bowing off. It’s too much, the suction of his mouth on that tiny bud. I’ve never had it in someone’s mouth and God, oh God, I’m shaking.

  “You taste like cherry. Plum, sweet cherry,” he murmurs into my pussy before smothering it with his lips.

  A tiny smile blooms on my lips at his rumbled declaration, but soon it turns into a turned-on grimace. I massage his scalp with my fingers, making him grunt low and gather me close—even closer—in his arms. I arch into his mouth, digging the heel of my boot into his back. My needy actions spur him on and his hardened tongue rains down on me with all its might.

  “Oh God, Th-Thomas…” I break off at a moan that originates in my belly. “I can’t… It’s-It’s too much. It hurts.”

  He pulls on my clit before letting go of it with a pop. “Good. You make me hurt too.”

  With that he dives back in and vacuums my wet, sticky lips. My entire pussy fits into his greedy mouth as he eats it, nibbles on it, chews it out. All I can do is take it, let him make a meal out of me.

  Oh God, it stings so good.

  “Fuck.” His agonized whisper brings my attention to his bowed head. I loosen my fingers from where I’ve been strangling the beautiful strands of his hair. “Your pussy is so tight, tighter than I ever imagined it to be, and I’ve imagined a lot.”

  My breath evaporates as he looks up. He is aroused, flushed and sweating, yet he appears godlike. How’s that possible when he’s the one on his knees? He’s a beautiful, sexy god who has my sticky juices painted on his mouth and chin. It glistens in the yellow light like liquid fire.

  “I’m not proud of it. I don’t want to think about it, but you tempt me, Layla, so fucking much. You make me feel crazy.”

  With that, he falls on me. That’s the only way to describe it. His lips lock around my clit before going back down to my sopping entrance. He crams his tongue in my channel and Jesus, it hurts so bad, but in a very, very good way. The sting is what makes this entire thing real, and I wouldn’t trade it for a comfortable, all-pleasure fuck for anything.

  Now that Thomas is inside, he swirls his tongue, feeling me up. He alternates between thrusting his tongue in and out and bumping it across the crevices of my cunt. The lashing, the suction, the way he growls—it’s all rolling into a big ball of fire inside my stomach. The blue flames around my belly button burn bright and alive.

  “I’m…I’m going to come,” I wheeze out, rolling my hips, pulling on his hair. He doubles his efforts—if that’s possible—and pushes me off the edge.

  I fall off the tightrope I’ve been walking and come. I fly, shaking and quivering and chanting Thomas’ name.

  My heart races and bursts into a million pieces, traveling to every corner of my body with the furious rush of my blood. I become my heart, a pounding mess, and my heart becomes me, sleepy and peaceful in the midst of my climax.

  I think I black out for a few seconds because the next thing I know, Thomas is standing up, dragging my previously fallen coat over my arms. My orgasm-addled brain is confused as he buttons up my coat. My mind goes to the last time I was here and he kept opening them. His actions are so not what I was expecting when I came here, not after what he said to me about imagining my pussy.

  I put my hand on his as he is about to close the last button beneath my chin. “What…What are you doing?”

  He looks up. His eyes are still burning, his cheeks slashed with red. He wipes his mouth against his arm, making me catch my breath. That move was so masculine, so fucking primal that I can’t help but be affected by it.

  “Taking you home.” His voice is scratchy, as if he hasn’t spoken in a while.

  “What? Why?”

  “Because you need to leave.” He knocks my hand off his and finishes buttoning my coat. The gesture is aggressive, angry, and I can’t breathe for a second.

  “But…I—”

  He straightens the collar of my coat as if I’m a child and stares into my eyes. “If you want someone to fuck you, you need to look somewhere else. Don’t come back here. We’re not friends. We’re not anything, you understand?”

  I remain quiet. My ability to form words is gone. Thomas isn’t happy, and neither is the tic flickering on his hard jaw. “Do. You. Understand, Layla?” he asks again, with gritted teeth and flaring nostrils.

  “Y-Yes.”

  He moves away from me, cool and unapproachable, and breathes deep. “Let’s go.”

  How the fuck did it go so wrong?

  I thought…

  What did I think? Yes, what was I thinking? That he’d sleep with me? That his pain is so big, so agonizing that he’d commit the sin of adultery?

  Not everyone is like me. Not everyone is selfish and impulsive and a goddamn moron.

  I sob and groan and cover my face with my palms, even though I’m alone in my stone-cold bathtub.

  Thomas dropped me off an hour ago, without saying a word. The entire ride took less than five minutes, and from the inside of his car, campus looked even more forbidding and dark and desolate. I didn’t even wait for the car to come to a full stop before I jumped out and dashed into my tower, and now I am here, drowning in embarrassment and guilt and anger.

  We’re not anything.

  If he didn’t want me then why did he make me come? Why did he put his mouth on me and let me shatter in his arms only to kick me out the door?

  My tattoo is buzzing with heat. How crazy does someone have to be to do something like this for a man who isn’t even her boyfriend? Thomas has to be the most confusing man I’ve ever met—not that I’ve met many men in my life. My love for Caleb took care of that.

  I slide down and lie on my side, bringing my legs to my chest and curling into a fetal position. I spend the night in my bathtub, oscillating between sobbing and being angry. In the morning, I hear a crash and I’m jerked upright. There are angry noises and I run out of my room to see what’s going on.

  “I’m not taking their side. What’s wrong with you?” Dylan booms, shaking his head.

  “I don’t want to talk about this. Can you just leave?” Emma is holding the front door open, her face tight and inflexible.

  Dylan runs his hand over his face and sighs. “Fine. Whatever. You’re being unreasonable.” With that, he strides out of the apartment.

  I decide it’s safe to speak. “Hey, what’s…what’s going on?”

  Emma is staring down the hallway. She turns to me slowly and closes the door behind her.

  “Sorry, did we wake you?” She drags her feet to the couch and plops down on it, dejected.

  I sit beside her. “No, it’s fine. Tell me what happened.”

  “It’s nothing. It’s stupid.”

  “It’s not stupid if you kicked Dylan out of the apartment first thing in the morning because of it.”

  She turns to me and seethes. “He was being a moron, that’s why.”

  �
��Okay. About what?” I realize this is what normal life feels like—fighting with your boyfriend, kicking him out, and then bitching about it with your friend. These are normal problems to have. I wish I had normal problems. Normal problems are so much better than what I have.

  “About spring break,” Emma replies. “My mom wants me to come home. I don’t want to, but Dylan is insisting that we go. He wants me to bond with my mom or something.”

  “And that’s a bad thing, why?”

  She sighs and peers up at me. I’ve never seen her this serious and this calm. It’s kind of scary. “My mom… She is not a nice person. I don’t like her, and that’s never going to change.”

  My heart is beating anxiously. Is that why she never talks about her parents? I remember the heated phone call she had when she first moved in. Dylan was the one to calm her down. Since then I’ve never seen her talk to her family.

  “Did…Did she do something to you?” I ask, apprehensive.

  “No, not to me. To my dad.” She sighs, looking away from me and staring at the wall. “She cheated on my dad, and he had no clue. None.” Air rushes out of me and I feel like I’m collapsing on myself as she continues, “It hit him out of nowhere. He was devastated. I mean, how could you do that to a person you promised to spend your entire life with?”

  My throat is dry and scratchy. It’s rejecting words, but somehow I manage to mumble, “I-I’m sorry.”

  She shakes her head and goes on, as if she didn’t hear me. “She destroyed our family. My dad lost his job because he couldn’t keep up with it. They spent months fighting over custody of me. I was a minor so I didn’t have a say, and my mom won because my dad wasn’t ‘stable’ enough to take care of me. On top of that, she married the man she cheated on my dad with. As soon as I turned eighteen, I decided I’d never step foot in that house again.” She turns to look at me, her eyes glassy. “I’m never going back. Never. I hate her and what she did to us.”

  “How’s your dad?”

  Emma shrugs. “He’s fine. He’s dating someone. As much as I’m happy for him, it’s too weird for me, but I don’t begrudge him that. He deserves all the happiness, you know?”