Letting go...

The key stabbed my palm as I fisted my fingers around it. I'd come to say a final good-bye, to let him know that I was so over him it wasn't funny, and here I stood, unable to move as my mind tried to process the scene before me.
I should have knocked. Too late to have such a realization, but it was the truth. But I hadn't, I'd stuck the key in the lock and entered as if I still had the right to do so, and now I'd be forever branded by this punishment.
They were on our bed...no, his bed. She must not have heard the door, not that I could blame her, perched as she was on his naked lap, doing God knew what with her hand. But he looked my way, and his expression held the accusation that I felt. How dare he believe I was in the wrong? I wasn't the one fucking a stranger in our bed...no, dammit! His bed.
I glared back, daring him to continue as if I wasn't even there.
Oh God, would I ever learn?
The bed squeaked as he shifted the woman on his lap. The sound used to mean things were about to get really good but now it simply took hold of my heart and squeezed as if trying to wring out every last drop of blood.
Look away, you fool...leave.
I ignored the warning, just as I had a year ago when I'd first laid eyes on this man. He'd been nothing but trouble and heartache in a package impossible to resist. It was a year out of my life best forgotten, and one I doubt I ever would. This moment was the rotten cherry on top.
The bed squeaked again, and I nearly cried out in pain. The woman's back was fully toward me now, eliminating any possibility that she'd discover they weren't alone. How disgustingly thoughtful of him. His eyes continued to hold mine as he unhooked her bra and eased it down her arms. She wiggled on his lap, once more reaching between his legs.
My palm itched as if I held the thick weight of his erection. I knew what he liked...I knew exactly how to grasp and stroke to make his lips part and his heart race. Did she?
The slender muscles of her arm flexed and yet his expression never changed. I couldn't help but be pleased. I smiled.
His eyes narrowed and his hands slid down her back to cup her ass. He lifted her enough to show me what I really did not need to see, her eager hand curled around the base of his shaft. I looked away but there was nothing to focus on that didn't hurt. I didn't want to see the smooth skin of her thighs pressed to the crisp hair covering his. Nor did I want to see the way his strong fingers held her ass.
I closed my eyes, but the images remained. Oh God, I'd dream about this, I just knew it.
Her soft giggle pulled my gaze back to the bed in time to watch her body absorb his hard length. Oh God...Oh God...my body reacted with an intense contraction. No...whatever horrible thing I'd done in my life to deserve this moment of torture, I vowed to undo it, no matter the price.
Her giggle turned to a sigh, and I wanted to scream.
Despite the noise, I opened my fist and let the keys fall to the floor. She whipped around, her eyes wide in her lovely face. Of course she was lovely, as if I really believed for a moment he'd choose otherwise. As curious as I was to study her, it was his gaze that held my full attention.
"I thought I'd return the key." It was a miracle I could speak. I was partially aware of the woman's curious gaze flicking back and forth between us, but I refused to be the first to relinquish eye contact. If this was a battle of wills, I needed to be the winner.
"Why don't you join us," he purred.
For an insane moment, I actually considered it.
"Who is she?" the woman suddenly asked. Her voice was rich with desire, or maybe she always sounded that sultry. Yippee for her.
He held me in the same sort of gaze that had trapped me in the beginning. He could promise so much with those eyes, and what truly hurt, was his ability to deliver. It was only his tongue that lied...no, I wasn't being fair. I'd only wanted him to love me but he'd never told me he would.
"She's nobody," he finally said.
The woman gasped at the cold tone of his words while I died a slow death.
That was that then, I suppose, or did I need him to spell it out?
I met the woman's wide, sympathetic stare. "He'll hurt you too, you know?" I gestured toward them, toward their locked bodies. "No matter how this feels, he'll hurt you, and you'll realize it wasn't worth it."
"But it was, wasn't it?"
I snapped my gaze back to him, hating him for the arrogance that prompted such a question.
He spoke again before I could. "If I sent her away and offered myself to you, you'd accept, and we both know it."
Damn him.
My body wept inside and out at the chance to have him one more time.
"Do you want me to send her away?" He ignored her gasp, and without looking away from me, managed to catch her wrist as she tried to slap him. There was a seriousness in his expression that terrified me. He'd do it. If I said yes, he'd send her away and spend the rest of the evening giving my body what it craved.
I took a step toward the bed, wanting him so much...
His smirk stopped me in my tracks.
Leave. Leave now.
It was as if two very powerful forces held me. One tugged me toward the door, the other toward complete ruination. Why was it so hard to do what you knew to be right? Why did those choices have to be the ones that hurt?
He slid her off his lap, and while she fumed next to him, he held out his hand. "Come here."
I took in the sight of his aroused, naked body. Oh God...somewhere, somehow, I found the strength to look him in the eyes. "No."
I left him gaping at me, and I prayed it would be the shock on his face that I dreamt of tonight.

L Rosario 5/02/07