Total pages in book: 89
Estimated words: 87155 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 436(@200wpm)___ 349(@250wpm)___ 291(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 87155 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 436(@200wpm)___ 349(@250wpm)___ 291(@300wpm)
“I told you I would,” he mumbled, then straightened and pulled the flask out of his back pocket. “Whiskey?”
He wasn’t really offering it, but I shook my head anyway. He swallowed a large gulp. Hardness was slowly returning, laying concrete over broken ground. I watched it happening before my eyes.
“You shouldn’t be down here, Sofia. This place,” he looked around, shaking his head. “It’s haunted.”
“Haunted?” I wanted him back, the man I’d just seen, the one I’d glimpsed for mere moments. He wasn’t making sense, and he wouldn’t look at me. Something told me I needed to get him upstairs. Get him out this cellar.
“Too much pain and suffering and hate.” He spat the last word.
“Come upstairs with me, Raphael.”
He shook his head. The light glistened against his too bright eyes. “Go.”
“Not without you.”
“I belong here.”
He drank.
I went to him again, tentative this time as I raised my hand to touch his arm, the back of his hand. He watched it, watched the progress of my touch.
“You don’t belong down here. No one does,” I said.
He only looked at me.
“Come upstairs with me. Please.”
“You don’t know me. You don’t know anything about me. You don’t have the first fucking clue of what I’m capable of.”
“I think I may know you better than you think. And you’re right. There’s too much hurt here. You need to come upstairs with me.”
“Why? Why do you care? I mean, look what I’m doing to you.”
I didn’t answer that. I couldn’t when I didn’t know the answer myself. All I knew was that I couldn’t leave him down there alone. Not now. Not ever.
“It’s cold.” I took his hand and dragged him, or tried to, toward the stairs, but it was like trying to move that pillar. “I’m cold. Take me upstairs.”
He didn’t answer, just watched me. I wasn’t sure how much of the whiskey he’d already had. He didn’t seem drunk, but he wasn’t himself.
“Come on, I’m cold.”
Just then, Charlie’s yappy bark came from the top of the stairs. I looked up at him. He stood at the edge of the stairs still too small and maybe too frightened to take that first leap down. When I turned back to Raphael, I found him watching me with the strangest look in his eyes. I couldn’t name it. Couldn’t put my finger on what it was.
“Come with me, Raphael.” This time, he let me lead him up. “Charlie will get hurt if he tries to come down.” Slowly we went up, and Charlie circled our ankles when we got to the top. I turned out the light and closed the door behind us. He let me lead him through the house and up to the second floor. “You’re freezing,” I said when we got to my bedroom.
He just stood watching me.
I opened the door and pulled him in with me, not sure it was the best idea, not with that strange look in his eye. From the bathroom, I grabbed a towel and dried his hair, shoulders, and chest and set the towel on the bed. Unsure what I was doing, uncertain I should do it at all, I began to undo his jeans, first the button, then the zipper. He stood still, and I knelt to take off his shoes and socks so he stood barefoot, bare-chested, his jeans open, the dark gray of his briefs visible.
I pushed the jeans down off his hips, the wet denim sticking to his thighs. Swallowing, I bent again, and he stepped out of them.
“Sofia,” he said once I straightened.
“Shh.” I pulled the covers back. “We’re just going to sleep.” I meant it. Nothing would happen. Not yet.
His forehead had furrowed, and his eyes had lost some of their strange brightness. He nodded, and when I pushed on his chest, he got into bed. I drew the covers over him, watching how the thick muscle of his arms and shoulders bunched when he turned to his side.
Charlie tried three times to jump on the bed. I picked him up and lay him at Raphael’s feet before grabbing my tank top and shorts and changing in the bathroom. Raphael lay watching me when I returned. I drew the covers back and climbed into bed, turning my back to him, taking care not to touch him. But then his heavy arm draped over my waist and pulled me to him. My heart raced and my breath hitched as he tucked himself around me, his big body wrapping around mine, his arm settling, his hand splayed open at my belly, holding me tight to him.
Neither of us spoke, but I knew he didn’t sleep for a long time.
Eventually, his breath evened out, and I closed my eyes, my body too tired to fight the fatigue any longer, his body too warm for me to not curl into, to soften against.