Chapter 23: Cruel Paradise: Chapter 23

After that night, we’re inseparable.

He eats meals with me, wanders the town and marina with me, sleeps beside me in my small motel bed. At least I assume he sleeps. He must. Every time I wake, however, he’s already up, with coffee and pastries waiting.

I never hear him come and go. A part of me thinks he can turn to smoke and slink silently in and out of rooms through cracks in windowpanes or under doors, like Dracula.

Honestly, it wouldn’t surprise me.

Over dinner in the evenings, he asks me questions, dozens of them. They grow more and more personal each day. He asks me about Fin and Max. About my favorite movies and TV shows. About my favorite foods and books. He asks what I wanted to be when I was growing up, what I remember about my mother, what it was like being an only child.

If I’ve ever been in love.

I answer everything honestly. I ask no questions in return.

If he wonders why, he doesn’t mention it. Perhaps he knows it’s the only way I can protect myself. I’m afraid that the more I discover of that poet’s heart that beats beneath his powerful, dangerous exterior, the more unable I’ll be to walk away when it’s time.

He takes me dancing. He takes me to the movies. He rents a sailboat and captains it himself. We visit art galleries and museums, we listen to a jazz trio at a bar overlooking the ocean, we stuff ourselves on lobster and crab. We do all the silly tourist things any normal couple would do on vacation.

And, everywhere, we make love.

On a dock at night. On a merry-go-round in a park. In the motel jacuzzi. Down a dimly lit, secluded back hallway of a restaurant. In a high school auditorium we snuck into after dark.

It’s always frantic and almost always wordless. We’ll be walking hand in hand down the street or standing at a beachside railing watching the sea birds circle overhead, and suddenly we’ll look at each other and be overcome.

That’s the only way I can describe it: overcome. Overwhelmed by heat and hunger.

Overpowered by need.

When I wonder if this is how my mother felt when she met my father, I feel deeply afraid. And more certain that my moratorium on this affair is wise.

Not wise enough, though.

I didn’t know it then, but I’d already lost my heart.

The guy who approaches me is about thirty, well-built and nicely dressed, and smiling. He’s got a man bun and a tattoo of a katana on his forearm. He’s Caucasian, so getting a traditional Japanese cultural symbol inked onto a visible body part means he’s either a devout student of martial arts, or a douche.

“Hi,” he says, and takes the stool next to mine at the bar.

Killian’s in the restroom. Behind the bar, Harley looks at the new arrival with an expression like he’s just taken his life into his own hands by occupying Killian’s seat.

When Harley looks over at me, brows raised, I shrug. If this guy wants to get his face rearranged, so be it.

Harley pours Man Bun a shot of tequila and sets it in front of him.

Surprised, Man Bun says, “Oh. No thanks, bro. I’ll take a strawberry daiquiri.”

“Of course you will,” deadpans Harley. “Do you need a tampon for that mangina of yours, too?”

Man Bun is insulted, puffing up his chest. “Excuse me?”

Harley looks him up and down then snorts. “Oh, don’t get your panties in a bunch, sweetheart. You’ll be dead within five minutes. Enjoy yourself while you can. And try going out with some dignity.” He looks at Man Bun’s hair and grimaces. “You’ve embarrassed yourself enough.”

He walks off to serve another customer. Man Bun looks after him in astonishment, then at me.

I smile. “Colorful, isn’t he?”

Disgruntled, he says, “Uh, yeah. I guess you could call it that.”

I sip my wine and wait for him to introduce himself. When he does, I nearly spit the wine out of my mouth.

“I’m Tripp. With two Ps.”

I swallow with difficulty, then reclaim my smile from where it fell onto the floor in shock. “Hi, Tripp with two Ps. I’m Juliet.”

His brows shoot up. “Really? Juliet? Like from Shakespeare?”

Oh, the irony of having my name met with surprise by a guy named after what happens when you’re too clumsy to walk a straight line without stumbling.

“Yes, like from Shakespeare.”

“Huh.” He grins. “I guess you need a Romeo, then.”

Or a Taser.

I see Killian approaching from behind Tripp, his long legs eating up the distance between the men’s room and the bar with alarming speed, and think for a frantic moment that I should probably warn Tripp off before he gets hurt.

Until he leans closer to me and says, “I’m up for the job, if you’re looking.” He waggles his eyebrows up and down.

Your fate is sealed, Man Bun.

But Killian surprises me by maintaining his cool. He walks up beside me, kisses the top of my head, and turns to Man Bun with a friendly smile. “Hullo, mate. I see you’ve met my woman. Knockout, isn’t she?”

He looks Killian up and down, swallowing. A shade of color fades from his face. “Uh…”

“Nice ink,” says Killian, looking at Man Bun’s sword tattoo. “Shinogi-Zukuri was originally produced after the Heian period. I prefer Kissaki-Moroha-Zukuri myself. Unlike Shinogi-Zukuri, the blade is double-edged. I like to have both edges of my swords sharp. Much more cutting power that way.”

He grins at Man Bun’s deer-in-the-headlights look. “Are you into firearms, too, by any chance? I’d love to show you my collection.”

Grinning, Harley sets down a strawberry daiquiri in front of Man Bun. He drops a paper umbrella into it and dodders away, cackling.

Man Bun stands, grabs his daiquiri, and smiles stiffly at us. “Nice meeting you.”

Watching him run away, Killian chuckles. “I guess I’m paying for his drink.”

I say, “What’s it like, going through life the way you do?”

“Which way is that?”

“King of the jungle. Lord of the manor. Master of all you survey.”

Killian slides onto the stool Man Bun just deserted and smiles at me. “Gratifying. Convenient.” His smile falters. His voice drops. “Lonely.”

It kills me when he’s vulnerable. I glance down at my glass of wine.

Switching back to a normal tone, he says, “What’s it like being so attractive random strangers try to pick you up in bars?”

I snort, looking over at a trio of women sitting at a nearby table, gawking our way. “You should know, stud.”

He follows my gaze. “Maybe we should give them something to take back to their husbands.”

“What do you mean?”

Instead of answering, he shows me.

He leans over, takes my face in his hands, looks deeply into my eyes, then kisses me.

It’s a passionate kiss, but it’s also searingly tender. My head tilted back, I sink into him, fisting my hands into the front of his shirt and breathing his scent into my nose.

When he breaks the kiss, it’s to whisper another line from Romeo and Juliet into my ear.

“‘But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.’”

My voice strangled, I whisper back, “I will stab you in the heart with a cocktail fork.”

He pulls away, still cradling my face in his hands. His smile is achingly beautiful and sad.

“You’ve already stabbed me in the heart, thief. Now it’s just a matter of seeing how long it will take for me to bleed to death.”

We gaze at each other, all thoughts of the three staring women vanished. He sweeps his thumb gently over my cheekbone, then back and forth over my lips.

I blurt, “You wrote in your note that I make you want to live a different kind of life. Was that true?”

“Aye.”

“And…” My heart pounds so hard I have to take a breath. “And what if I asked you to do that? To give up the life you have? Would you do that for me?”

He answers without hesitation, his voice husky. “I would if you said you trusted me. I would if you gave me your whole heart. If you stopped holding back.”

His throat works. He moistens his lips. His voice drops to a whisper. “If it meant I could have you for good, I’d light my whole life on fire and walk away from the ashes.”

It sits there between us, crackling dangerously like a live wire.

He waits, tense and silent, staring at me. His hands tremble on the sides of my face. He murmurs my name, his voice so raw it guts me.

I almost say it.

I almost blurt, “Yes, I trust you, yes, I’m crazy for you, yes, let’s be together and tell the whole world to go take a flying fuck.”

But at that moment, the music changes.

“Let It Be” by the Beatles comes on.

An icy chill runs through me, raising the hair on the back of my neck and the skin on my arms in gooseflesh. It feels like my mother is reaching out to me from beyond the grave with a warning. I can almost hear her ghostly voice hissing in my ear.

Don’t do what I did. Don’t fall in love with a bad man, or you’ll wind up dead like me.

And just like that, the spell is broken.

I lean away from Killian, taking my face from his hands and facing forward in the stool to stare blankly ahead. My hands shaking, I reach for my wine. I drink it, trembling all over, stunned by how close I came to the edge of the cliff.

Stunned by how much I wanted to fling myself off it.

Beside me, he blows out a hard breath. His laugh is low and brittle. “Harley.”

The bartender snaps to attention when Killian calls his name. “What can I get you, boss?”

“Glenlivet. Three fingers. No ice.”

“You got it.”

We sit in tense silence, side by side, watching Harley get a glass and pour the liquor. As soon as he sets it down, Killian grabs it and shoots it down. He exhales, sets the glass back on the bar with a sharp thunk, and turns to me.

His voice is sandpaper rough. “Let’s not drag this out. I’ll leave tonight instead of tomorrow morning.”

I smother the little voice inside me screaming No! No! No! and try to keep my voice calm. “It’s not that I don’t want to trust you. It’s that I can’t.”

His laugh is bitter. “You can. You just choose not to.”

“Can you honestly blame me?”

He curls his hand around my upper arm and turns me to face him. His jaw is hard, his eyes are blazing with fury, and he’s never looked more handsome.

He snaps, “Aye, I can fucking blame you, because you know how good this is, but you’re too scared to give it a go.”

“Scared?” I repeat, my voice climbing. “More like smart. More like sensible!”

He leans in and pins me with his burning stare. He growls, “Bullshit.”

I blink at the vehemence in his tone. “Excuse me?”

“That’s total bullshit, and you know it. It’s an excuse.”

My voice rises even higher. “You’re a criminal.”

“So are you.”

“You’re a gangster!”

“And you’re a thief.”

I cry, “I do what I do to help people!”

He stares at me, all the tendons in his neck standing out and his nostrils flared. After a bristling moment of silence, he says, “Me, too, thief. Me fucking too.”

Then he jolts to his feet and stalks away through the crowd, hands clenched and shoulders stiff, turning heads as he goes.

Harley says gently, “Don’t worry about the drinks, sweetheart. This round’s on the house.”

He walks away, leaving me alone with the oddest sensation that I’ve just made a terrible mistake, only I can’t figure out why.

When I get back to the motel, Killian is already there, waiting for me.