InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Purity 9: Subterfuge ❯ The Morning's Light ( Chapter 136 )

[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]

The ardent crush of lips against hers cut through the veil of sleep, searching, demanding, gentle yet tinged by a deeper resolve, a need so encompassing that it engulfed her before she could stop to think.  The haze of sleep worked against her, slowing her already crawling brain, making it impossible to process anything at all other than the welcome pressure of the body so close to hers, the whispering touch of hands that drew a groan from somewhere deep inside her . . .

No thoughts at all; just the wealth of tactile feel—smooth skin under her hands, flesh that burned with an urgency that couldn't be comprehended, but that made perfect sense in her addled mind . . . The flick of a tongue against her lips—It felt so natural as the kiss deepened, lengthened, widened to engulf her.  Fists closing around handfuls of silken hair, holding him close as he crashed right through the imaginary resistance that didn't exist at all . . .

The grind of his hips against hers wrung a soft gasp from her.  The sound of it was lost beneath the unrelenting touch of his lips.  The hand that shoved the shirt up as it traversed her skin seemed to sear her flesh as it rose higher, trailing over the hollows of her body, closing over her breast as she shuddered.  The mouth relinquished control over hers, balmy kisses trailing lower, lower, and she cried out, harsh, raw, when it closed over her nipple, drawing her in deep, shattering her completely while lifting her higher and higher . . .

He nipped at her, sending a shockwave of pleasure jolting through her, and with a ragged cry, her body seemed to convulse, rising up off the mattress as her eyes flashed open wide.  The reality of the situation crashed down on her with a bitter, almost sickening force, snapping her back to her senses with a vindictiveness that dulled the rioting of her senses.  "Evan, no," she murmured, turning her head to the side, trying to pull away from him as her body protested with a violent shudder of misfiring nerves.  "Stop it . . . Stop it!"

The last of her words were punctuated by a hard shove—as hard as she could muster.  Evan sat up suddenly, his breathing harsh, strained, and he blinked in confusion.  Valerie couldn't speak, could barely remember that she had to breathe, could hardly contain the sudden wash of misplaced desolation that bore down on her, as confusion roiled up fast, frothing, ugly, somewhere deep down.  "Wh-What do you think you were doing?" she demanded, her tone harsher than she meant for it to be, her inner turmoil lending a very real confusion to her as she sat up, too—as she tugged her shirt back down.  Whether she was talking to Evan or to herself, she didn't know.  Nothing made sense, did it?  Nothing, nothing, nothing . . .

"Fuck!" Evan rasped out, raking his hands through his hair as he slumped forward, elbows on his knees.  Gripping his head, he hunched forward a little more.  "Damn it!  Damn, damn, damn, damn, damn . . ."

Valerie opened her mouth to speak, but she couldn't.  The suspect lump that threatened to choke her precluded her ability to do so.  She didn't even know what she wanted to say, or maybe . . .

"Son of a . . ." Evan growled, shoving the curtains aside as he stumbled off of the mattress and to his feet.  "Damn it!"

It still took her brain a little longer to completely comprehend just what had happened—what had almost happened, and as that realization dawned on her, she winced.  As much as she'd rather crawl under the covers and hide for the rest of her life, she couldn't.  Too many conflicting emotions were rising up inside her.  Confusion, anger, frustration, embarrassment, disappointment . . . and yet she wasn't sure which ones were directed at herself, which ones were directed at Evan, which ones might be directed at God or whatever entity had orchestrated the entire situation . . .

Crawling out of the bed as she winced and tugged her shirt down even more, she pushed herself to her feet, noting in the back of her mind that she didn't feel at all steady as she crossed her arms over her chest in a wholly protective kind of way, and she had to clear her throat a few times before she trusted her voice to work.  "Evan?'

"What?" he snarled, pausing in his search for clothes long enough to glower at her before returning to his task once more.

Recoiling slightly at the vehemence in his tone, Valerie swallowed hard but stood her ground.  "Wh . . .? Why did you do that?" she finally demanded, a bitter edge entering her voice whether she intended for it to be there or not.

It was the wrong thing to have asked.  Snapping upright, Evan shot her an incredulous look, as though he couldn't quite wrap his head around her question.  "Why?" he repeated, the look on his face echoing in his voice, his face contorting in an exaggerated mask of unbridled rage.  "Are you fucking serious?"

"It's not like I did a thing to encourage you," she told him, wrapping her arms more securely around herself, her voice escalating to match his own.  Something in his tone—something ugly and vengeful bit at her as the need to defend herself rose fast.

She could feel his gaze on her even if she adamantly refused to meet it.  "You what?" he demanded at last.  "Is that what you honestly think?  Are you stupid, woman?  Really?"  As though he couldn't continue speaking, he uttered a fierce kind of growl.  "You wrap that fucking body of yours around me every goddamn night, and you try to tell me you're not encouraging me?  Are you fucking serious?"

"I didn't go crawling into your bed, damn it!  You yanked me in there!" she protested, somehow needing to shield herself from his anger, from his wrath.  "I was going to sleep on the floor like I try to do every night!  It's not my fault that you have absolutely no self control!"

"Of course I don't have self control!" he bellowed, rounding on her as he yanked a shirt over his head.  "You shake your shit at me every fucking day, then you crawl all over me every fucking night!  Smashing your titties against me, wiggling your hips, telling me that I'm fucking warm!  How much self fucking control do you think I should have, V?  How much?"

"I do not!" she shot back, reacting to the accusation rife in his voice as she forced back the initial desire to shy away from him.  "I was sleeping—sleeping!  I didn't do anything to make you think that it'd be okay for you to—to—"

"To what, V?" he interrupted, his voice lowering, his tone much more controlled than it ought to have been.  She didn't take note of that, however.  His anger grew larger and larger like a storm cloud ready to burst, and she had nothing at all to protect herself against him, leaving her feeling as vulnerable as she would if she were standing before him, naked and shivering and lost.

"To do what you were doing!" she snapped back, her own irritation rising fast—angry that she should feel so intimidated by him—by anyone.  "I'm not one of your damn whores, Roka!  How dare you—"

"Oh, my fucking God, don't I know it?" he growled, raising his voice to cut her off as he prowled the length of the room and back again.  "No, V, you're not one of my whores, are you?  If you were, I'd have fucked the living, breathing shit out of you already, not just once but every fucking night . . . but you hate it with a passion if I want to go find one of them, now don't you?"  Raking his hands through his hair, Evan's head snapped to the side, pinning her with a ferocious glower as though he were daring her to gainsay him.  "Why is that, V?" he suddenly demanded, moving toward her in a slow, predatorial kind of way.

"Why is what?" she snapped back, irritation rising in direct proportion to the imaginary sound of alarm bells, ringing in her head.

Blue eyes narrowing, snapping with in icy kind of fire, he snatched a coffee mug off the counter, and when he discovered it was empty, he tossed it away.  It shattered with the kind of sound that grated against Valerie's already raw nerves, and she had to grit her teeth hard to keep from screaming out loud.  "Why the fuck does it bother you, who the hell I sleep with?  Why the fuck do you care, as long as I'm not bugging you?"

"I care because you're not doing it for the right reasons," she insisted.  "Is it really all you want?  A good fuck tonight with a woman who will forget about you tomorrow?  Those women don't care about you, Evan!  Can't you see—?"

"Can't I see what?" he bellowed, casting her a withering glance but looking away just as quickly, as though he couldn't stand the sight of her.  "Do you think I give a shit if they love me or not?  Do you honestly think that's what I'm looking for?  All I want is a woman who is willing to do the things that you aren't—a woman who knows how to suck and fuck and come on my face, goddamnit!"

"And nothing else matters to you?"

"Why should it?" he demanded angrily.  "Why the fuck should it?  It's none of your damn business!  Do you get that, V?  None!"

"It is!" she insisted, her throat raw, her words harsh, her eyes shining with a sheen of tears that she stubbornly refused to let fall.

"No, it's not!" he growled.

"Of course it is!  I'm your friend, remember?  And that's what friends do!" she shot back.  "Stop their friends from doing stupid things!"

"Friends?" he echoed, eyes widening in feigned surprise.  "I've got news for you, woman!  I've never wanted to be your goddamned friend!  That was your invention, not mine!"

"Fine, then!  Whatever!  I don't care," she blurted, cheeks reddening as the words poured out, as anger and hurt collided, as they snaked together in the pit of her stomach.  She felt as though he'd just sucker punched her, right in the gut, and she snorted loudly to cover up the pain before it shot to the surface, before he could see how badly his words had hurt.  "I don't care in the least, Roka!  I'm just your attorney, right?  You only hired me to protect your damn image!"

"No!" he blasted, sweeping his arm over the top of the bureau, sending everything that was on it flying across the room.  That wasn't enough for him, and Valerie couldn't help the strangled yelp that escaped her when his fist smashed into the full length mirror outside the bathroom door, shattering it into a million pieces that rained down onto the floor.  "Zel Roka's image, maybe.  Mine?  Fuck!  You don't give a great goddamn about my image, and you know it!"

"The hell I don't!" she snapped back, his anger fueling her own, the rise of her temper in direct proportion to the rising need to vindicate herself.  The ugliness in his every movement made her feel sick, made her want to cry.  And yet, she stood her ground, as though she believed that she'd crumble if she didn't, knowing somewhere deep down that everything was deteriorating while she was powerless to stop it.  "All you do is get in trouble, and then you think everyone else is going to bail you out!  You laugh it all off like it's no big deal when it is, and you know it is!  But you don't care, do you?  To hell with everyone else!  To hell with everyone but you—including your family, right?  You break their hearts all the time, and then you turn around and try to put the blame on them when you're the one who isn't interested in listening to them any more than you listen to me!"

"And they don't have a damn thing to do with this, Valerie!  As for listening?  You're no better, are you?  Oh, maybe you are.  After all, you listen when you want to, right?  When you're not busy, running away from anything and everything that you don't want to hear before it's even been said!  That way you can't say that you don't listen because you've never had to!  Maybe I'm not the best listener in the fucking world, but at least I try!  At least I listen better than you do!" he snarled.

"And when have you ever listened to me?" she countered.  "When have you listened to me when I've told you anything?"

He snorted, shaking his head to refute her claims, hands opening and closing as though he needed to destroy something else.  It wasn't enough.  It wasn't nearly enough . . . "I listen to you all the damn time, V!  I listen to that mouth of yours tell me one thing while your body tells me something else!  You say you don't want me, that you think I have no right, but you don't mind fucking sleeping with me, now do you?  And just how the hell do you justify that in your head?  Because I'm fucking warm?  Because you hate to sleep alone?  What the fuck ever, woman!  You don't even know what the hell you want, do you?  So how the fuck do you expect me to be able to figure it out?"

"Don't give me that, Roka," Valerie shot back, stepping forward, poking a finger in the center of his chest.  "The only thing you care about is yourself!  You and your women and to hell with the rest of the world!"

Knocking her hand away, he stomped over to the counter as though he had to put some distance between them, and maybe he did.  "Well, if you really want to point fingers, Val, then how's this one?  At least I'm not afraid to take chances!  At least I'm not the one who hides behind excuses, settling for something that you call safe when all it means is that you don't have to bother trusting a damn soul because, God forbid, they might not live up to your sky-fucking-high expectations!"

"This isn't about me," she informed him, her anger rising so high, so fast, that she could feel her body shaking.  "It's about you and your uncanny inability to remember that I'm engaged!"

"You think I don't fucking know that?  You throw it into my face every time I turn around, don't you?  Your fucking fiancé!  Your fucking joke, you mean!"

"Like you know anything about it," she snapped.

"Yeah, and about that," he went on, grabbing his keys off the counter and stuffing them into his pocket.  "You're a damn hypocrite!"

"Oh, I'm a hypocrite," she countered.  "Why?  Because I don't let you do whatever you want to me?  Because I don't just bow to your every whim?"

"No, V," he shot back.  "You're a damn hypocrite because you don't even bat an eye when you go running off without your fiancé!  He doesn't know where you are, who you're with, what you're doing, and that's fine with you, isn't it?  How the hell else can you string everyone along, right?  Marlin . . . Me . . . and whoever else you've got hidden in the fucking closet!  Works out well, doesn't it?  Everything you want—everything you want—you take it all, and you don't look back."

"Marvin," she corrected through clenched teeth, ignoring the horrible, awful feelings that shot through her, "and you're so wrong, it's laughable.  You're the one who thinks it's all right to say whatever you think I want to hear because you think I'm fool enough to believe you!  It's what you always do, isn't it?  Say the right things, whatever gets you into someone's bed?  And you hate it, don't you?  You hate that it doesn't work on me!"

"Is that what you think, Valerie?  Is that really what you think?" he growled.  His voice was lower, the look in his eyes almost frightening.  Somewhere in the back of her mind, she knew that he was dangerously close to snapping.  Stalking toward her, grabbing her arms, he gave her a good shake but didn't let go.  "You crawl into my bed in nothing but your fucking tee-shirt and panties, you wrap your damn legs around me every fucking night, you don't give a shit what you're doing to me all the damn time, and you honestly think that everything I've said to you was some sick attempt to get you into bed?  That's what you think of me?"

He shook her again for emphasis, his hands digging into her arms as he refused to let go.  "Rattle my teeth again, Roka, and I swear to God, I'll make you sing soprano for a year," she warned.  It was pure stubbornness that made her straighten her back, pure bravado that kept her from backing down.  "Why else would you say all that crap about wanting to be with me 'forever', then you turn around and tell me that you want to go find a woman—any woman—to fuck—your words, Roka.  Not mine."

"If all I wanted from you was sex," he ground out, his voice growing quieter by the second even as the fire banked in the depths of his gaze brightened by degrees, "I could've done that—a few times.  Should I name them for you?"

"Go to hell," she snarled, yanking her arms free of his grasp and turning her back on him.

"You're the one who got fucking naked on my tour bus, weren't you?" he blasted.  "Every time—every time—I tried to get away from you, you followed me, didn't you?  You followed me, and your curiosity . . . You had to touch, you had to feel, and you had to have your way, right?  Do you have any fucking idea just how badly you wanted me that night?  Bad enough that you didn't give a great goddamn who or where your fucking fiancé was!"

"I was drunk, wasn't I?  So all you'd have accomplished would have been getting the fuck you were after."

She heard his frustrated growl.  She heard him move, too, but she gasped when he grabbed her once more, uttering a harsh little yelp when he spun her around and slammed her hard against the wall.  "All I want is a fuck?" he demanded, pinning her in place with his body, his hips pressing against hers in a wholly inflammatory way.  Even now, even in the heat of his rage, he was two steps from coming completely undone, wasn't he?  "Yeah, you're right.  That's all I want.  That kiss at Christmas that meant nothing at all to you—it didn't mean shit to me, either, did it?  Why the hell do you think I wanted to come down here?  To play your games some more?  I'm sick of your games, Valerie.  Do you hear me?"

"I don't play games," she retorted, shoving against his hold.  It didn't do any good.  He was entirely too strong to be moved.  "Get off me."

Evan went on as though he hadn't heard her at all.  "Kiss me because it's convenient, right?  You were caught up in the moment; it didn't mean anything—it was an accident!  You can explain away everything, can't you?  Justifying everything you possibly can in your own head because you'd rather put it away than look at it!  Every morning, every night, and I've done everything I could think of to show you that all you have to do is take that chance, but you can't, can you?  And God forbid you give up your toy, right?"

"What toy?" she demanded, struggling against him and getting nowhere.  "I don't know what you're—"

"Me, damn it!  That's all I am to you, aren't I?  Keep me on a fucking leash, tease me twenty-four-seven until I can't even fucking see straight because I want you so bad I think I might die!  Turn to me when you think no one else is looking?  Drive me to the absolute brink of my sanity, and it's all right, isn't it?  Because I'm nothing but a buffer for you!  I keep the rest of the world away because I'm idiot enough to let you do it!  You don't want me, but you don't want anyone else to have me either.  Those are your rules, right?  Right?"

She snorted, balancing on the precarious edge, the invisible boundary between what she thought and what she truly believed.  "Because you want to go whoring yourself around, convincing yourself that it's what you want then trying to say that it's because no one has ever really wanted to be with you?  If you think I'm so awful, then why the hell did you bring me with you?"

The look in his eyes was icy cold, hard and brittle, just like his voice.  "I tried not to, if you'll recall.  I told you that I wanted to go alone, didn't I?"

She snorted and rolled her eyes.  "Then maybe you should've acted like you were serious for once!" she snapped back.

"I said 'no', V!  That should have been clear enough!"

"And I tell you 'no' all the time, but you don't take me seriously, either, do you?"

"Again, if I didn't take you seriously, then we wouldn't really be here now, would we?  No, because if I didn't take you seriously, we'd have already done the fucking, and you'd be at home, hating me right now because I'd be the dickhead who used you then tossed you away!"

"You're being stupid," she insisted, shoving at his shoulders.  "You've had ample chances to go do whatever you wanted to do!"

"Have I?" he growled, his irritation reaching an apex.  "Every time I try, you do something to stop me, don't you?  Sending me pictures or calling or cutting your damn foot open!"

"You can't blame that one me!" she insisted.  "You think I did that on purpose?"

"No, you didn't," he shot back, "but the end result was the same, now wasn't it?  You got me to come running back, damn everything else to hell!  And you knew I would, didn't you?  Because it's what I always do!"

"I thought—"

"You thought nothing!" he cut her off, gaze boring into hers with a raw intensity that dared her to gainsay him.  "You thought that I'd admit that you were right, that I was wrong?  Don't you get it?  You want me to be able to deal with you?  Then stop playing with my fucking head, V!  I'm not a saint!  I'm about as far from one as you can possibly get!"

"Why do you even think you need to do that?" she demanded.  "The world doesn't revolve around sex!  You're not going to die if you don't do it!"

"Aren't I?" he yelled as his fist slammed into the wall beside her.  Valerie gasped and shied away as the plaster groaned and crumbled.  "Because of you, I wake up every morning, aching so bad that I think I'm going to explode, but all you care about is your damn coffee!  Because of you, I lie awake every night, thinking about what your body would feel like under mine when you say you don't fucking want me but your body doesn't quite get the message!  Because of you, all I can think about every minute of every fucking day is whether or not you'd scream my name when you come!  Something's gotta give, woman, so either you lay the fuck down and spread your legs for me, or let me go find someone who will!"

"That's—"

"What?  Did you change your mind?" he demanded in a no-nonsense, deceptively quiet tone.  "Do you want to fuck to me?" he went on, his voice dropping to a deceptively low growl as he smashed his hips against hers again, a shocking reminder that his passion could easily be redirected.  It was enough to stun her into silence as a violent shiver ran up her spine.  He must have felt her reaction, though, because his eyes narrowed as the expression on his face hardened a little more.  "Save me from my sins, Val.  After all, isn't that what friends do?"

"Of course not," she scoffed though the color that suffused her cheeks couldn't be hidden.  His accusations felt like a slap in the face, the harshness of the very air around him seemed to claw at her, to dig at her, to tear her apart, bit by agonizing bit . . . The mocking in his voice cut her deep, left her bleeding where he couldn't see, pushing a rise in her last defense, the anger that she could hide behind.  "Don't be stupid!"

Taking a deep breath, letting it out slowly, Evan's head drooped to the side.  "Yeah," he finally said, shoving himself away from the wall.  "Stupid.  That's me."

She watched him stalk across the room to reach for his cell phone before heading for the door, and she drew a deep, stuttering breath as her misfiring nerves threatened to revolt.  "W-wait . . ."

"I'm done waiting, V," he growled without turning to face her.  "I've done nothing but wait for you.  If you want to lean on someone so damn bad, then lean on your perfect fiancé."

"Wh-Where are you going?" she asked, taking a step forward, unsure if she was trying to stop him or if she wanted to push him out the door.  The strangest sense that if he walked out now, she'd never see him again slammed through her, and it carried her forward, quickening her pace, unsure as to why she wanted to stop him but knowing deep down that she had to.

He stopped in the doorway and whipped around to face her.  "Where do you think?" he demanded, arching an eyebrow as he glowered at her.  "I'm going to find the first woman who'll have me, and I'm going to fuck the living, breathing shit out of her.  I'm going to go grab one of my whores and shove my dick so far down her throat that she chokes on it.  I'm going to tap her so goddamn hard that the entire island is going to hear her come, and you know what?"

Valerie stopped and swallowed hard, shaking her head without speaking.

The smile that surfaced on his face was nasty, horrible, and scary as hell.  "I'm going to imagine your head on every last one of them, V, as I push them onto their knees and come all over their damn faces."  Her gasp was audible in the strained silence, and then Evan laughed—a cutting, derisive sound—without any actual humor in it at all . . . "And don't call me.  In fact . . ."

She stopped in her tracks as he strode back over to the counter once more, digging the phone out of his pocket and slapping it down.  "Now you can't."

"Evan," she rasped out, unsure what she wanted as she ran after him, as she grabbed his arm, trying to get him to stay.  That feeling was back in spades, wasn't it?  All she knew was that if he walked out that door—if he really did, then . . . "Evan—"

"Don't cry, Valerie.  Don't you fucking dare," he warned, shaking her hands off as she blinked furiously.  "That is what you wanted, right?  You want me to be exactly what you always thought I was, don't you?  The asshole rockstar?  The womanizing bastard?  Well, there you go.  That's what I am.  That's all I'll ever be.  Congratulations."  Turning on his heel, he stomped out of the house, slamming the door closed behind him and leaving a stunned Valerie in his wake.