Page 98 of All That We Are Together
“Open the door, Axel.”
“Do it, Leah. Ask me.”
A gust of wind blew through her hair.
“That night, when I went to look for you…” Her voice gave out as she tried to meet eyes with me. “I screamed at you that I didn’t understand why you wouldn’t fight for the things you loved. Like painting. Like me. And then you…”
“I said maybe I didn’t love them that much.”
“So was it true?”
I walked toward her, dying inside as I saw her so shrunken, so broken, waiting for an answer that for me had been so obvious, at least until I made the effort to step into her shoes and understand that she had been waiting three years to hear those words, three years doubting, three years asking herself.
“I lied to you, goddammit. I lied.”
“How could you? How could you spoil everything that way? What is there even inside you?” She struck her fists against my chest. “Because I still don’t know, Axel. After all this time, I don’t know…”
I muffled the pain of those words with my lips. I kissed her with rage, with guilt, with a lust I could no longer suppress, with my teeth, with my body pressed against hers in the doorway of the building as her throbbing hands roved my chest. I wanted to sink into her, make her see that I loved her as I’d never loved anyone else, make her understand that what I said then was so far from reality that I didn’t even know where I’d found the balls to utter those words.
I somehow managed to get the key into the lock and push the door open while still kissing her. My hands were shaking in her hair as we climbed up the first step. And the second. And the third. And a few more, until I finally realized we wouldn’t make it upstairs.
I could hardly see her face in the darkness. I clutched the nape of her neck and pressed my lips into hers, biting her, licking her, abandoning all pretense to sanity.
“I’m going to tell you what I want, because it doesn’t make sense anymore to go on pretending I can be your friend without hoping for anything else. I want to kiss you good morning at the beginning of every day. I want to fuck you every single night. I want to come on you and in you. I want to be the only one who ever touches you here.” I slid my hand between her legs while she stifled a cry. “I want you to scream my name. I want you to die to have me again.”
“Axel…” Her face was pressed against my cheek as she groaned.
I was going to ask her whether or not I’d been clear, whether she needed me to be even more specific, but I was no longer capable of using my mouth to speak. All I could do was kiss her and try to climb another step, and then I’d stop, and I’d kiss her again. I lifted her dress and ripped her tights as I tried to pull them down. She grabbed the banister as I slid my fingers inside her; she was wet; she was quaking with desire, just like me. Her hands found my belt buckle, and I had to hold my breath to keep from coming. I closed my eyes and lifted her up. She must have thought I was going to carry her to the apartment, but I couldn’t… I couldn’t think… I couldn’t resist anymore… I couldn’t do anything but push her against the wall in the stairwell with her legs wrapped around my back.
“Axel…someone will see us.”
“I don’t care.”
Leah bit my neck as I plunged deep inside her. I groaned with pain, with pleasure, then rammed even deeper, even faster, wanting her to shout, wanting her to let everything out, for her to think of me alone, of us, us being together, to realize just how perfect that was. Panting, mad about her, I vanished between her legs. I could feel her nails biting into my shirt and her moaning in my ear, her teeth on my skin, her lips…those lips. I looked for them, and she hung from my shoulders while we fucked desperately, and I tried to tell her with kisses that this was more, so much more than just sex…
Her body suddenly tensed.
“Look at me, babe. Look at me.”
I needed her to do it when she finished, and I could tell she was close, just waiting for the next thrust. She did. She pulled her lips away from mine and opened her eyes slowly, looking for me there in the shadows. I pressed my forehead into hers and breathed in her warm breath before sinking back into her quickly, ramming her against the wall, feeling her so vividly, losing myself so completely. I howled as I came inside her, breathless, heart pounding against her pounding heart.
The silence embraced us. I set her down when my arms began to give out, and I looked for her mouth again, but she turned away. Before I could even button my pants and try to grab her, she picked up the keys and ran upstairs.
“Shit. Leah, wait!” But it was too late.
87
Leah
I locked myself in the bathroom and ran water into the tub, ignoring the knocks on the door and his shrill voice, because I couldn’t face him. I muffled a sob as I sat on the ground with my back leaning against the wall.
“Just talk to me. Let’s make peace.”
“I can’t. I can’t right now,” I replied.
I could feel him there, just a few inches away, divided from me by a wall and a past that was a dusty road full of memories and problems.
“Leah, please…”