Page 62 of Expressionate
She gasps. “Fuck,” I repeat. Her nails score my back. “God-fucking-damn.” My cock bottoms out in her sweet pussy. “Shit.” She cries out when I reach down with my other palm and tweak her little clit. I push that button and then rub around in a clockwise motion. I love watching herwrithe.
“Tax!” I close my eyes as she screams my name and I let myself fall. I let myself jump off the cliff with her and into the heaven that awaitsus.
If I have to be lost, then at least I’m notalone.
22
Love
Aphone is ringing.Myphone.
My head feels heavy from sleep. I roll away from Tax and nearly off the side of my bed. The phone is still ringing. Reaching up, I feel around the bedside table and finally, my fingers hit the edge of the offensive device. Sometime in the night, Tax must have gotten up and retrieved it. I pull it back and flip it over, the bright screen assailing my eyes. I flinch and check the time first. 1:30am.
I would turn it back over and press ignore, but I see the name on the screen and my finger can’t hit the answer button fastenough.
“Trisha?” Sheets shift behind me as Tax sits up, rubbing a hand down his handsome face – over the dark shadow of his beard. He kisses my naked shoulder and wraps his arms around my middle as I listen to the sounds of heavy breathing on the other side of theline.
“Trish?” I tryagain.
More heavy breathing and then a short sob cuts off, icing the blood in my veins. The next words are a punch to my very soul. “He’s dead,Love.”
I stand up so abruptly that I inadvertently jerk away from Tax. The phone at my ear feels like it’s a bag of bricks, but by some unknown strength or maybe just pure will, I keep it pressed to myface.
“Whathappened?”
“I…I don’t even…Love…he’s not breathing.” I grab the closest thing, which just happens to be Tax’s discarded shirt. I pull it over my head, yanking my hand away long enough to get them into the sleeves before pressing the phone to my ear oncemore.
“Where are you?” I ask. “Are you at home?” I should have known something would happen. But I don’t have time to focus on that. Trish is falling apart. Her breaths are loud, and they echo throughout the room as I slam my phone on the desk and press speaker as I reach for a pair of my own jeans and jerk them up over myhips.
“The house,” she says, “I’m at thehouse.”
“Love?” I don’t realize Tax is behind me until I feel his hands on my shoulders. I spin around, realizing he, too, has pulled on pants. I shake myhead.
“Call 911,” I say, nodding to his own phone laying on the floor. I give him the address to Lawrence and Trisha’s rental house and snatch up the phone again before pressing the speaker off. It doesn’t make her heavy breaths – shallow, panicky and full of so much pain – anyquieter.
“What do I do?” she asks, sounding hollow and empty. It cuts me deep. I vaguely hear Tax behind me, relaying the address information to a 911 operator and requesting an ambulance. It will be too late. I trust Trisha’s words. Lawrence is probablydead.
“Just wait there, honey,” I hear myself saying. Thankful that my voice sounds stronger than I feel, I start searching for my keys. “I’m coming. I’ll be rightthere.”
“I don’t want you to see me like this,” she whispers. “I don’t know why I called. I just…I knew you would understand. Love…why do I feel sodirty?”
If she had sliced my wrists and then reached up through my veins to grab my heart and squeeze, I think it would have hurt less. It’s at least a full minute before I can reply. A full minute in which I’m shaking as I stand in the doorway of my bedroom with my keys in my hand. I don’t even remember finding them. They are just there, all of a sudden, in myhand.
When I can finally speak, I’m not even sure where the words come from. But I know them to betrue.
“You feel dirty because a dirty person has hurt you,” I say. “Because they’ve taken something from you, but it’s okay, Trish. You can get it back. I’ll help you. I love you more than my own life. Please don’t do anything. I’m coming for you. I’mcoming.”
Tax’s hand on my arm makes me jerk and I glance down at the dark screen of my phone. I know it’s dead. Of course, it is, I didn’t charge it. Tears fall from my eyes, sliding down my face, dripping onto mycollarbones.
“I can’t drive,” I whisper. My knees are shaking. I can’t even unclench my fist from the keys. Tax reaches down and gently removesthem.
He pulls his keys out of his pocket. “Don’t worry. I’ve got you, Lovely. Let’sgo.”
* * *
Desire makespeople do dangerous things. It makes teenage boys crawl up the sides of houses into the bedrooms of teenage girls. It makes women and men alike obsess, covet, and claim the souls and hearts of others as their own. Desire is like a flame – always burning, even if sometimes subdued. An ember ever lit, it scorches a path across the lives of everyone who falls into its claws. Desire is destructive. Desire and hate, though…I wonder how different those two are or if they are different atall.
I don’t know what made Lawrence do what he did, but I know – as Tax flies through the streets in a t-shirt that smells like motor oil and dirt that he pulled from the backseat of his Jeep – I know I was right. He’d been hurting Trish. And she’d been lying aboutit.
