Chapter 16: Heartbeat Confession
The silence after he left was a physical thing. It filled the apartment, thick and heavy, pressing down on Souline until she finally got up, stripped the bed, and shoved the sheets into the washer. She watched them churn, his scent and their sweat swirling down the drain. It felt symbolic, but it didn’t make her feel clean.
She called the doctor the next day, her voice steady as she scheduled the first prenatal appointment. She stared at the date and time on her phone screen for a full minute before copying it into a text to Sire. No greeting. Just the facts: Dr. Evans, Thursday the 17th, 10:30 AM. His reply came almost instantly. I’ll be there. Three words that felt like a threat and a promise welded together.
She didn’t go back to Saint’s Corner Store. She couldn’t face the possibility of seeing him, or his brothers, or the pity in their customers' eyes. Instead, she scoured job listings online, applying for anything that seemed remotely feasible—data entry, receptionist work, a remote customer service position. The process was numbing, a daily ritual of copying and pasting her information into digital voids. She existed in a state of suspended animation, moving between her couch and her bed, eating because she knew she had to, jumping every time her phone buzzed.
His texts came like clockwork. Every morning, just after 8 AM. You good? You eating? Sometimes, in the evening: Need anything from the store? She never answered those. Only once, when she’d woken up with a cramp that spiked a cold, sharp fear through her, did she text back. Is cramping normal? His call came less than ten seconds later, his voice strained but trying for calm as he read verbatim from a pregnancy website he’d pulled up. “It can be, Baby. Just round ligament pain. But call the doctor if it gets worse or you see blood, okay? Promise me.” She’d just hung up. He texted an hour later. Everything okay? She replied with a single word. Yes. That was the pattern. Communication only concerning the life growing inside her.
The morning of the appointment arrived with a gray, drizzling sky. Souline dressed carefully in loose, soft clothes, her hands trembling slightly as she zipped her hoodie. She grabbed her purse, took a deep breath, and opened her front door.
He was there, leaning against the wall opposite her door, a looming silhouette in the dim hallway light. He straightened up as she emerged. A week apart had done something to him. The rage was banked, but it had left behind a gaunt, watchful intensity. His eyes, shadowed, drank her in, tracing over her face, her body, as if checking for damage. She saw his jaw tighten, a muscle ticking in his cheek. He was wearing a simple black t-shirt and jeans, but he looked dressed for a fight, or a funeral.
“Morning,” he said, his voice rougher than she remembered.
“You didn’t have to come here,” she said, her own voice quiet. “I can drive myself.”
“I’m here to drive you.” He said it simply, as if it were an unchangeable law of nature.
She clutched her keys. “I think it might be best if we just meet there. Take our own cars.”
He didn’t argue. He didn’t get angry. He just looked at her, his dark eyes holding hers, and took a single step closer. The air between them crackled with the memory of his hands, his mouth, his body holding hers down in this very hallway. “Please, Baby,” he said, the word slipping out, soft and ragged. “Let me drive you. For the first visit. Just… let me do this.”
The ‘please’ undid her. He never said please. She looked away, down at the scuffed floorboards, and nodded. “Okay.”
The drive was silent except for the swish of the windshield wipers. He drove with a focused intensity, both hands on the wheel, his gaze fixed ahead. His car smelled of him, of clean cotton and that faint, spicy cologne and now, underneath it all, the new-car scent of the SUV she realized he must have just bought. It was bigger, safer. She didn’t ask.
At the clinic, he was a wall of quiet, impossible efficiency. He held doors open, his hand a whisper at the small of her back guiding her toward the reception desk. When the receptionist asked for a copay, Souline fumbled for her wallet, but Sire’s arm shot out, his card already in his fingers. “I got it,” he said, his voice leaving no room for discussion. He paid before she could even protest.
In the waiting room, he chose two chairs in the corner. He didn’t sit politely beside her; he sprawled, his long legs taking up space, his arm draping over the back of her chair, his body a territorial arc around hers. When the clipboard of paperwork came, he took it, clicking the pen. “You answer, I’ll write,” he murmured. He knew her date of birth, her social, her address. He hesitated only on ‘Father’s Information,’ his knuckles whitening on the pen before he began filling in his own details with deliberate, forceful strokes.
They called her name. Inside the exam room, the nurse was cheerful. “Dad can wait out here if you’d like to get undressed.”
“I’m coming in,” Sire said, the words flat. He followed Souline, closing the door behind them.
The doctor, a warm-faced woman in her fifties, came in and greeted them both. She asked questions about symptoms, medical history. Sire stood slightly behind Souline’s chair, a silent sentinel. When Souline hesitated on a question about family history of high blood pressure, his voice cut in, low and sure. “Her mother has it. Controlled with medication.” He remembered. He was listening, cataloging, participating in a way that felt profoundly disorienting.
“Alright, let’s have a look, shall we?” the doctor said brightly, gesturing to the exam table. “Hop up, Souline. You can leave the gown open at the bottom.”
Souline lay back, the paper crinkling beneath her, the sterile blue of the room making her feel exposed and vulnerable. The doctor dimmed the lights and wheeled the ultrasound machine closer. Sire moved to the side of the table, his hip leaning against it, his eyes fixed on the blank screen.
The gel was cold, a shocking slap on her lower abdomen. Souline flinched, a small gasp escaping her. Instantly, Sire’s hand was there. Not holding her hand, but gripping the top of her thigh, just under the edge of the paper gown. His calloused palm was searing hot against her skin, a brand through the thin material. His touch was firm, possessive, a steadying anchor. She could feel the slight tremor in his fingers.
The doctor moved the transducer, and the monitor flickered to life with shifting, grainy shadows.
Then, a shape coalesced. A distinct, curved form. A head, a spine, little nubs that were arms and legs. A tiny, impossible human being, floating in the gray static.
Sire’s breath hitched, a sharp, ragged intake that sounded like a sob caught in his throat. His grip on her thigh tightened almost painfully. He leaned down, pressing his forehead hard against her temple, his dreads brushing her cheek. His other hand found hers on the table, his fingers threading through hers, squeezing so tight her bones pressed together.
“There’s our baby,” he rasped, the words thick, mangled with emotion.
A rapid, rhythmic whoosh-whoosh-whoosh filled the room. The heartbeat. It was fast, strong, a tiny galloping horse echoing off the walls. It was the loudest sound Souline had ever heard. It vibrated in her chest, in the hand Sire was clutching, in the place where his skin met hers. Tears flooded her eyes, blurring the image on the screen. She couldn’t speak. She could only hold onto his hand and listen to the proof of their catastrophic, beautiful mistake.
The doctor smiled, moving the transducer to capture measurements. “Everything looks perfect. Great size, strong heartbeat. Based on my measurements today, I’d put you right at about thirteen weeks along. Congratulations, you two.”
Thirteen weeks. Souline did the math backwards in her head. It lined up perfectly with that night, the first night, the one before everything got complicated. The night that felt like a lifetime ago.
The doctor finished, wiped the gel from Souline’s stomach, and handed her a few grainy printouts. “I’ll give you two a moment,” she said softly, slipping out of the room.
The door clicked shut. The whooshing heartbeat was gone, replaced by a ringing silence. Sire didn’t let go of her hand. He didn’t lift his forehead from her temple. His breath was hot and uneven against her skin. She could feel the wetness of his tears where his face met hers.
Slowly, he straightened up, but he didn’t release her. He looked down at the black-and-white images in her hand, his eyes red-rimmed and blazing with a ferocious, awestruck love. He brought their clasped hands to his mouth and pressed a hard, desperate kiss to her knuckles, his lips trembling.
“Souline,” he whispered, his voice shattered.
She finally looked up at him, her own face wet. All the anger, the betrayal, the hurt—it was all still there, a canyon between them. But in that moment, staring at the image of their child, with his hand fused to hers, the canyon seemed to echo with the same, relentless, unifying sound.
The heartbeat.
The heartbeat echoed in the silence he left between them.
Souline wiped her cheeks with the back of her free hand, the one he wasn’t still clutching like a lifeline. She needed to move, to break this unbearable, tender spell. She gently pulled her hand from his and swung her legs off the table, the paper gown rustling. The cool air hit her gel-smeared stomach.
“I need to get dressed,” she said, her voice barely a whisper.
He didn’t nod or speak. He just watched as she slid off the table, his eyes tracking every movement. She turned her back to him, reaching for her clothes folded on the chair. Her fingers fumbled with the button on her jeans.
“Here.”
His voice was close, right behind her. His hands, those large, capable hands that had pinned her wrists and gripped her thigh, came around her. They brushed hers aside. He undid the button himself, his knuckles grazing her lower belly. He knelt, holding the jeans open for her to step into. She steadied herself with a hand on his shoulder, the solid muscle there tense under her palm, as she stepped one foot, then the other, into the denim.
He didn’t rush. He pulled the jeans up over her hips, his thumbs hooking into the waistband to tug them into place. His fingers lingered at her hips, a slow, deliberate sweep. He stood, so close she could feel the heat radiating from his chest against her back. He reached around her for her hoodie, holding it open.
She turned and slid her arms into the sleeves. He gathered her damp, curly hair, his touch surprisingly gentle, and pulled it free from the collar. His hands came to rest on her shoulders, then slid down her arms, a slow, possessive stroke.
Then he broke.
He pulled her into him, his arms locking around her so fiercely the air left her lungs in a soft oof. It wasn’t a gentle embrace. It was a collapse, a seizure of need. He buried his face in the curve of her neck, his body shuddering. He held her like he was drowning and she was the only air.
“I felt it,” he mumbled into her skin, his voice cracked and wet. “When the sound came. I felt it in my fucking teeth, Souline. That’s my kid. That’s us.”
She stood rigid for a moment, her arms at her sides. Then, slowly, her hands came up, flattening against the hard plane of his back. She could feel the rapid drum of his heart through his shirt.
“I know,” was all she could manage.
“I’m gonna get it right,” he said, the words a fervent, hot promise against her throat. “I don’t know how the fuck I’m gonna do it, but I am. I’m gonna be there for everything. I’m gonna make sure you have everything. You’re not doing any of this alone. You hear me? You’re not alone.”
He said it as if commanding the universe itself. She didn’t answer. She just let him hold her, let his words sink into her skin, a balm and a brand all at once. The clinical smell of the room was gone, replaced by him, by desperation and hope and a love that had always been too rough, too hungry, too much.
He finally loosened his grip, just enough to lean back and look at her. His eyes were bloodshot, raw. He cradled her face in his hands, his thumbs wiping at the residual dampness on her cheeks.
“I’m taking you to lunch,” he stated. It wasn’t a question.
“Sire, I don’t think—”
“I’m taking you to lunch, Baby.” The nickname, that old point of contention, fell from his lips like a prayer now. “You need to eat. We need to… just sit. Please.”
The fight was gone from her, drained out by the sonic boom of that heartbeat. She gave a slight, exhausted nod.
He drove them to a quiet, dimly-lit bistro she’d always liked. He ordered for her—a grilled chicken salad, extra avocado, a ginger ale—remembering her earlier nausea. He talked, his voice low and intense across the table. He talked about his new SUV, about its safety ratings. He mentioned looking at three-bedroom apartments closer to his work. He didn’t ask her opinion. He was building a future, brick by relentless brick, and simply presenting her with the blueprint.
She picked at her food, listening, caught in the surreal whirlwind of his planning. This was the other side of his temper, this terrifying, focused efficiency. He was claiming fatherhood with the same ruthless determination with which he’d once claimed her body.
He drove her home. The rain had stopped, leaving the streets slick and shining. At her apartment door, the silence from the car seeped into the hallway. She turned to him, key in hand.
“Thank you for coming,” she said, the formal words feeling absurd.
He stared at her mouth. The careful control he’d maintained since the clinic began to fissure. The raw hunger from the ultrasound room, the one that had nothing to do with the baby, surged back into his eyes.
“Let me in,” he said, his voice dropping to a rough whisper.
“Sire, no. We said space.”
“I just held my kid for the first time.” He stepped closer, crowding her against the door. “You felt that. I saw it on your face. That wasn’t just mine. That was ours. You can’t tell me you want me to walk away right now.”
Her pulse hammered in her throat. He was right. The high, the visceral shock of connection, was still humming in her veins. It had melted her defenses into a hot, needy pool low in her belly. The look in his eyes said he knew it.
“One hour,” he bargained, his breath warm on her lips. “Just let me be near you. I won’t… I just need to be inside, with you. Where it’s quiet.”
It was a terrible idea. She knew it as she turned the key and pushed the door open. He followed her in, closing the door behind him with a soft, definitive click. He didn’t touch her. He just stood there, in the middle of her living room, a storm contained in skin and denim.
She walked to the couch, sitting down, curling her legs under her. He watched her for a long moment, then came over. He didn’t sit beside her. He knelt on the floor in front of her, his hands coming to rest on her knees. He looked up at her, his expression devastatingly open.
“I’m scared,” he admitted, the words so quiet she barely heard them.
The confession shattered her. She reached out, her fingers threading into the short dreads at his temple. A low groan vibrated through him. He turned his head, pressing a hot, open-mouthed kiss to the inside of her wrist.
That was all it took.
He surged up, his mouth capturing hers in a kiss that tasted of shared salt and desperate want. It was nothing like the tender moment in the clinic. This was pure hunger, a reclaiming. His hands were everywhere—cupping her face, sliding down her neck, gripping the hoodie she still wore.
“Off,” he growled against her mouth, tugging at the fabric. “Need to feel you.”
They wrestled the hoodie and her shirt over her head. He undid her jeans again, this time with none of the clinical care from before. He yanked them and her panties down her legs in one rough motion. He kissed the inside of her knee, her thigh, his breath scorching her skin. He shoved her back onto the couch cushions, spreading her legs, his eyes dark and wild as he stared at the apex of her thighs.
“You’re so fucking wet,” he rasped, the words filthy and awed. “For me. Even now.”
He didn’t use his mouth. He leaned over her, one hand pinning her hip to the couch, the other fumbling with his belt and fly. The sound of his zipper was obscenely loud. He freed his cock, already thick and leaking, and sheathed himself in a single, brutal thrust.
Souline cried out, her back arching off the couch. He filled her completely, a familiar, devastating stretch that her body welcomed with a clenching, shameless greed. He stilled, buried to the hilt, his forehead dropping to hers.
“This,” he panted. “This is where I belong. Right here. Inside you.”
Then he moved. It was a hard, driving rhythm, each snap of his hips a punishment and a pledge. The couch groaned in protest. He hooked one of her legs over his arm, opening her wider, sinking deeper. The angle was exquisite, ruthless. She could only clutch at his back, her nails digging in, as he fucked her with a focused, possessive fury.
“You feel that?” he grunted, his breath hot in her ear. “That’s me. That’s my kid. We’re both in you now, Souline. We’re never coming out.”
His words, so raw and primal, tipped her over the edge. Her orgasm ripped through her, violent and silent for a second before a broken scream tore from her throat. Her inner muscles clamped around him in rhythmic pulses, milking him.
He swore, a choked, guttural sound, and followed her. His thrusts became ragged, uncontrolled. He came with a deep, shuddering groan, pumping his release into her, his body convulsing against hers. He collapsed on top of her, his weight a crushing, welcome anchor.
In the heavy quiet, broken only by their gasping breaths, reality seeped back in. The high faded, leaving the familiar ache. He was still inside her, softening. He lifted his head, his eyes searching hers. She saw the instant regret shadow his face, not for the sex, but for the loss of the fragile peace they’d briefly shared.
He pulled out slowly. He fixed his clothes with quick, efficient movements, then found her clothes and helped her dress once more, his touch now solemn. He sat beside her on the wrecked couch, not touching her.
“I’m sorry,” he said, not for the fucking, but for breaking the boundary. “I lied. I couldn’t just be near you.”
She leaned her head back against the couch, exhausted. “I know.”
He stood to leave. At the door, he paused, his hand on the knob. He didn’t look back.
“I’ll text you tomorrow,” he said. It was a statement. A promise. A thread.
A thread, frayed and thin, but it held.
Weeks bled into a tense, new rhythm. His texts arrived like weather reports: You good?, Drink some water, What did you eat? She let most of them expire, glowing then fading on her screen, unanswered. She replied only to the ones that mattered: a question about prenatal vitamins, a photo of the crib he was considering. Too big for now, she typed. Get a bassinet. He wrote back, Send me a link to the one you want. She did. It arrived two days later, a monolithic box on her porch she couldn’t lift. He showed up that evening, unannounced, to assemble it. He worked in silence, muscles shifting under his shirt, snapping pieces together with a focused violence. When he finished, he left without touching her, the phantom of his presence lingering in the perfectly made little sleeper beside her bed.
The next appointment arrived. She drove herself, a small, defiant act she knew would grate on him. He was already in the waiting room, a dark cloud in a plastic chair, his knee bouncing. Seeing her walk in alone, his eyes flashed, but he swallowed whatever curse was forming. He simply stood, took the paperwork from her hands, and began filling it out. In the exam room, he was a satellite drawn into her gravity, his shoulder brushing hers as they looked at the screen, his hand finding the small of her back when she stood. She didn’t shift away. The doctor pointed out fingers, toes, the steady pulse of the heart. Sire’s breath was a warm, steady counter-rhythm against her temple. She missed the weight of him in her bed, the careless intimacy of his sleep. The hurt was a cold stone in her gut, but it didn’t cancel out the warmth of his proximity.
He started dropping off food. A container of his mother’s oxtail stew appeared on her doorstep. A bag of fresh fruit. Grilled salmon with quinoa. He never asked if she wanted it. He just left it there with a text: Left something for you. Eat it. She ate it, each bite a complicated mix of gratitude and resentment. She never invited him in. The boundary was a line drawn in salt on her threshold, and she stood behind it, watching him through the peephole as he lingered, running a hand over his dreads before turning to leave.
The job at the Cypress Arms Apartments, secured through Reina’s manager friend, was a salvation. It was simple: answering phones, sorting mail, processing rent payments. She was good at the organized calm of it. The uniform, however, was a cheap, polyester blend—a fitted black pencil skirt and a white blouse that gaped slightly between the buttons over her swelling breasts. It felt professional to her. Necessary. She didn’t tell Sire. His vision was clear: she would be a kept vessel, resting, growing his child on his dime. That future felt like another kind of confinement. She needed her own money, her own hours, a reason to get dressed that didn’t involve him.
He discovered it on a Tuesday.
He’d brought over kale salad and grilled chicken from the expensive place she used to love. Her porch was empty. No lights were on inside. He called. It rang out. He texted. Where are you? The minutes ticked by, each one stretching his nerves tighter. He waited, leaning against his new SUV, the container of food growing cold in his hand.
Her ten-year-old Corolla turned onto her street just after six. He watched her park, watched her head drop forward against the steering wheel for a long moment, a portrait of exhaustion. Then she gathered her purse and a folder of papers and stepped out.
The sight of her in the cheap, tight secretary outfit hit him like a physical blow.
The skirt clung to the new roundness of her hips and ass, stopping just above her knees. The white blouse was strained across her chest, a shadow of her bra visible through the thin fabric. She had her hair up, curls escaping to frame her tired, makeup-less face. She looked used. She looked like she belonged to someone else’s world. His world fractured.
He pushed off the SUV, his movement sharp, predatory. She jumped, seeing him, her folder clutched to her chest like a shield.
“Where the fuck have you been?” The question ripped out of him, low and dangerous.
“I was at work,” she said, trying to keep her voice even, walking past him toward her door.
“Work.” He repeated the word as if it were in a foreign, filthy language. He followed, crowding her at the door as she fumbled for her keys. “What work? Since when do you have a job?”
“Since two weeks ago.” She got the key in the lock, turned it. “I’m the secretary at Cypress Arms. Reina helped me get it.”
“Reina.” He spat the name. “You’re pregnant. You’re not supposed to be on your feet all day answering phones for fucking strangers.”
“I sit down, Sire. It’s fine.” She stepped inside, trying to close the door.
His hand slammed against it, holding it open. He loomed in the frame, his eyes burning over her body, taking in the provocative cut of the clothes, the exhaustion deep in her eyes. “You don’t need to work. I’ve been bringing you food. I bought the bassinet. What bill do you have that I can’t pay? Tell me. I’ll pay it right now.”
“All of them!” she snapped, her own temper fraying. “My rent. My lights. My car insurance. My life. We’re not together. I pay for my own life.”
“You’re carrying my child! That makes your life my business!” he roared, stepping fully inside now, forcing her back into the living room. The door slammed shut behind him. “You think I want you tired and stressed? You think I want you dressed like… like this…” He gestured at her, a furious, sweeping motion, “for every lewd motherfucker in some apartment office to stare at?”
“It’s a uniform! It’s not for anyone to stare at!”
“The hell it isn’t!” He was in front of her now, his chest heaving. The controlled man from the doctor’s office was gone, incinerated by this new threat. “You think I don’t know what men look at? You think I don’t know what they think when they see a woman shaped like you, dressed like that? Huh?” His hand shot out, not to hit her, but to fist in the cheap blouse at her waist. The fabric strained. “This is for them. This is so some asshole property manager can see what he owns.”
“Get your hands off me.” Her voice was ice, but her heart was a frantic bird.
“Or what?” he challenged, his face inches from hers. His anger was a live wire, sparking with a possessiveness so deep it bordered on madness. “You’ll what, Souline? Call the cops on the father of your baby? You’ll quit this stupid job?”
“No.”
The simple defiance in the word undid him. The wire snapped.
He kissed her. It was a conquest. His mouth seized hers, hard and punishing, his tongue forcing its way past her lips. She made a muffled sound of protest, shoving against his chest, but he was immovable. The folder fell from her hands, papers scattering across the floor. His hands went to her ass, gripping the tight polyester of the skirt, kneading the flesh beneath as he walked her backwards until her knees hit the edge of the couch.
“This,” he growled, tearing his mouth from hers to bite at her jaw, her throat. “This is mine. All of it. This job bullshit stops. Tonight.”
“You don’t get to decide that!” she gasped, even as her body, traitorously awake, flamed under his touch.
“Watch me.”
He spun her around, bending her over the back of the couch. She cried out, her hands flattening against the cushions. She heard the rip of thin polyester, a loud, tearing sound as he yanked the skirt up, baring her ass and the simple cotton panties beneath. He didn’t bother removing them. He just hooked his fingers in the waistband and tore them down her thighs. The cool air hit her exposed skin.
She heard the frantic jingle of his belt, the rasp of his zipper. He was already hard, his cock springing free, angry and thick. He spit into his palm, a crude, wet sound, and slicked himself roughly. He pressed the blunt head against her entrance, already wet from the chaos of their fight and her own conflicted arousal.
“Sire, don’t—”
He drove into her with one deep, merciless thrust. The breath left her body in a pained, pleasured shout. He was too big, too fast, too much. He filled her brutally, stretching her, a claiming so absolute it felt like violence.
“You don’t wear this for anyone else,” he snarled, his hands clamping on her hips, pulling her back onto him as he fucked into her with short, punishing strokes. The couch rocked against the wall with each impact. “You don’t get tired for anyone else. You don’t fucking exist for anyone else right now. You hear me?”
She couldn’t speak. Sensation overloaded her—the burn of the stretch, the shocking, deep friction of his cock, the heat of his hands branding her skin. A raw, guttural moan was torn from her throat. Her body, ignoring every protest from her mind, began to move with his, meeting his thrusts, clenching around him.
“That’s it,” he choked out, his rhythm growing more erratic, losing its punishing control. “Fuck, that’s it. Take it. This cunt is mine. This ass is mine.” He slapped her ass cheek, a sharp, stinging crack that made her jolt and cry out, her inner muscles spasming around him. “This job is over. You’re done. You come home. You rest. You let me take care of you.”
“I can’t—” she sobbed, the pleasure coiling unbearably tight, a reactor going critical.
“You can. You will.” He leaned over her, his chest damp with sweat against her torn blouse, his mouth at her ear. “I’ll burn that fucking office down before I let you go back. Try me, Baby. Just fucking try me.”
His words, the sheer insane possession in them, pushed her over. Her orgasm detonated, a silent, shattering wave that locked her muscles and stole her vision in a white flash. She shook, limp and pulsing around him, a ragged scream trapped in her throat.
He fucked her through it, his own control shattering. With three final, deep plunges, he came, a hoarse shout tearing from his lungs. He emptied himself inside her, his hips jerking, his body collapsing over hers, pinning her to the couch.
They stayed like that, a wreck of sweat and torn clothes and spent rage. His weight was the only anchor in the spinning room. His breath roared in her ear. Her cheek was pressed into the couch cushion, wet with tears or sweat, she didn’t know. The silence that followed was total, broken only by their ragged, slowing breaths.
Slowly, he softened and slipped out of her. He stood, his movements heavy. She heard him fasten his jeans. She didn’t move. She felt exposed, broken open, the ripped skirt around her thighs a testament to his victory.
He walked around the couch and looked down at her. His expression was hollowed out, the anger spent, leaving something bleak and terrified in its wake. He saw the ruined clothes, the redness on her skin from his hands, the glazed shock in her eyes.
Without a word, he bent and gathered her into his arms. She was limp, offering no resistance. He carried her to the bathroom, set her on the closed toilet lid, and started the shower. He peeled the torn blouse from her, undid her bra, gently removed the shredded skirt and panties. He helped her in under the warm spray, then stepped in behind her, still dressed in his jeans and t-shirt. The water soaked him instantly, plastering his clothes to his body.
He washed her. His hands, so violent minutes before, were now impossibly gentle. He smoothed soap over her shoulders, her back, her belly, rinsing away the evidence of his possession. He didn’t speak. He just worked, his touch a silent, desperate apology. When he was done, he turned off the water, wrapped her in a large, clean towel, and carried her to bed. He pulled back the covers and tucked her in.
He stood there, dripping onto her floor, a soaked, haunted figure. “I’ll fix the door,” he said, his voice raw. “I’ll buy you new clothes tomorrow. The right kind.”
She turned her head away on the pillow, closing her eyes. She heard his squelching footsteps leave the room, heard the front door open and close quietly.
On the nightstand, her phone buzzed. Then buzzed again. She knew it was him. She didn’t look.
Outside, sitting in his soaked clothes in the driver’s seat of his SUV, Sire stared at his own phone. He typed and deleted three different messages. I’m sorry was insufficient. I love you was a weapon. Finally, he just sent the one truth he couldn’t escape, the only thing holding the crumbling pieces of his world together.
I’ll be by tomorrow at 8 with breakfast. Don’t go to work.