Speak (The Voice trilogy Book 2) (6 page)

              I take a deep breath, filling my lungs with the scent of Roseanna’s candle, fighting the urge to light it.

              “Why are you sitting in the dark?” his sleepy whisper catches me by surprise, and I turn to see his silhouette in the doorway. He walks over and takes a seat next to me at the table and pulls the altar closer to him. Running his finger up and over the rivulets of dried candle wax, he watches me and waits.

              “Tell me about your parents, Sophie.” I watch him and mull over the request, needing to unburden myself. I am restless and filled with an unexplained anxiety that can only stem from seeing Roseanna and bringing up painful memories. I know the only way to relieve the pressure is to talk about it, but I don’t want to burden Rhys. I don’t want the dark cloud of my grief to color whatever this is, whatever it may become. “Please,” he begs quietly, “talk to me.” I am resigned. I know I have to talk about it. I know I should be honest with him.

              “They were high school sweethearts, together since they were fifteen.” Just the thought of being with someone for so long and from such a young age boggles my mind, but for them it worked. “They were polar opposites, my dad was a physicist and my mom was an artist. She used to confound him, but God, did he love her. They were so happy.” And they were happy, always smiling at each other, kissing, holding hands. They were so affectionate, towards each other and towards me. We were all so happy. “I was so lucky to have them. When they told me in the hospital what had happened, I thought it was a bad joke. I just knew that things like that did not happen to people like us. My parents were happy, they were good people, and I needed them. They couldn’t be gone. But they were.” He puts his arm around my shoulder and pulls me closer and I rest my head in the crook of his neck.

              “My mom was such a free spirit. You met Roseanna, her and my mom were practically inseparable. My dad was so rigid, so logical, but he just got her. He understood my mom better than anyone, and she knew how to make him laugh. They were perfect for each other. My mom was my best friend, and my dad was the best man I had ever known.” I sigh, but don’t cry. Talking about them feels good, cathartic, healing. “I miss them.” Rhys places the altar upright and puts the candle from Roseanna in the middle.

              “Let’s light this,” he stands and grabs a lighter out of the bowl next to the door, “for your mom and dad.” He sits back down next to me and hands me the lighter. “Do it, Sophie. You need to do it.” I know he is right. I take the lighter and spark the candle. The wick erupts into a bright green flame, sparking and bending until it settles into a healthy, high reaching pillar of glowing orange flame. The kitchen is filled with a soft glow that radiates from the candle. Shadows dance across Rhys’ placid face as a tear rolls down my cheek. He catches it with the pad of his thumb, swiping it across my lips before claiming my tears for his own, kissing me so deeply, lapping the falling tears away with his warm tongue. Grief drains from my body under the safe passage of his gentle fingertips as he winds his hand behind my neck and pulls me closer. An urgency blooms between us and the sparks of the candle have lit a fire that neither one of us can deny. My breathing picks up as his kiss deepens and he pulls me from my chair into his lap.

              “Let me cleanse you, Sophie. You are safe.” He speaks into my mouth without ever breaking the kiss and his words fill me. The empty space in my chest slowly swelling with a warmth that I had long forgotten. His kiss chips away at the last crumbling bricks of the wall I have hid behind for so long. And as the wall quietly crumbles to the ground, I am thankful to be in his arms. My whole body aware on a whole new level. He cups my face in his hands and stares into my eyes, those big green eyes filled with nothing but concern and pure longing. As if my pain hurts him more than it hurts me. He pulls me to his lips, a demand passing between us as he swallows me whole, “Let it go, Sophie.”

              I fall into the kiss and abandon myself fully to him and everything falls away. In the darkness, we sit. Our mouths dancing, arms tangled and tugging. In that moment, nothing exists but the two of us. I could not say where I end and where he begins and it is so overwhelming I don’t know whether to cry or shout. I cannot get close enough to him as I crush myself to his chest, wanting to crack him open and crawl inside. I turn and straddle him on the chair, needing every inch of me to be pressed against every inch of him. Never have I felt so lost to someone, felt so safe and I want more. I need more. I will never get enough of feeling like this. One moment I was sad and the next I am completely swept away by this man who has learned me, who cares for me, who wants to take my pain away.

              He pushes back from me and the fire in his eyes is delightfully startling. He looks consumed with lust.

              “I need to possess you, Sophie, to fill you up, I will go mad if I don’t,” his husky voice tickles my ears and makes me wet. He stands with me in his lap, his strong arms wrapped around me as he walks us into the living room, gently laying me on the floor. “I want to get lost with you, Beautiful.” He pulls my shorts off, the tips of his warm fingers running the lengths of my legs as he does so painfully slow. My head is swimming in a pool of turbulent lust watching him slowly undress me and then himself. As he stands and drops his trunks to the floor, I am overwhelmed with the need to feel him, to taste him. I rise up to my knees and look into his waiting eyes. He nods, putting his hands on the back of my head, guiding my mouth over his hard, waiting cock.

              Never have I wanted anything more. The velvet of his shaft against my tongue is heaven. The salt of his skin the flavor I have been missing. I grip him tightly and work him over with my mouth as he moans. Always guiding me, his fist in my hair. I get so caught up in the moment I push him to the back of my throat over and over. I am insatiable for him, unable to stop, to get enough. As I speed up, I feel him jerk and he tugs my hair, pulling me away from his body. He slowly shakes his head and grins.

              “Wicked,” he mouths, sinking slowly to his knees. He takes my face into his hands and grazes my lips with his, back and forth, so hypnotic. My whole body hums a tune I have never heard. I have never been this caught up. I am not thinking, just doing, he inspires such freedom in me. He pushes me to the ground and hovers over me, his fist tightly grasping one of my breasts. He tugs and twists at my flesh, leaving it hot and red, the light in his eyes says he likes the marks he leaves, as do I. In that moment I would gladly wear his finger prints all over my skin, to tell the world that I belong to him.

              And as he slides in and invades my body, I do belong to him. Mind, body and soul. I am so lost to this man in this moment, he is the air that I breathe. With every slow, deep thrust, he fills my lungs with the pure air of his possession. He owns me, slowly, deeply, completely. He watches me as we move together, our eyes locked. My pulse races while he takes his time. The length of his cock slowly torturing me, sinking so deeply, then retreating only to return with a little more force. In our own reality, we exist, only the two of us. A tangled mass of limbs and lust. Our sweat slicked skin binding us, our racing hearts working to keep pace. In this moment I am a free woman, so lost to this man that nothing will ever be the same.

Chapter 6

              The morning passes too fast and he is packed and ready to go. He looks back at me as his driver opens his door. He drops his bag to the curb and marches back to me with a swift purpose that sweeps me away. Lifting me from the ground, he kisses me. A kiss that rings in my toes as he quickly sets me back down with a grin. “I will be thinking of you, Ms. Noelle, every moment until we meet again. And I promise to make that as soon as possible.” He turns on his heel and disappears into the back of the car, taking my breath and my heart with him.

              It is easier to bury my head in work now. I know I will see him again, there is no question of how or if, just when. And the knowledge sets my mind at ease.

                                          ***

              I stare down at my phone, stunned. The rocking of the ambulance rolls my stomach and I feel sick. My grandmother lies on the gurney in front of me, still and vacant.

              “She is unresponsive,” the paramedic calls to her partner who is driving. She starts some sort of IV fluid and turns to me. Her lips move and I watch them, but I hear nothing of what she says. A quiet roar slowly grows in my ear and I am deaf to everything, but the most ferocious beating of my own heart. It sounds like a war drum, filling my head and tearing my nerves to shreds.

              “Ma’am?” Like a voice in a tunnel, her quiet words erupt across the van and I snap my head up. “Ma’am, do you have someone to meet you at the hospital? If you need to call someone, go ahead.” She nods at me and I realize I have been gripping my phone with white knuckles, staring blankly at the blackened screen. I know who I want to call, but I‘m just not sure I should. He hasn’t even been gone for two days and already I am in crisis. I don’t want to bother him. I don’t want to rely on him, but every fiber of my being is screaming right now, I need him to wrap his arms around me, to hold me together while I slowly fall apart. Before I can talk myself out of it, I tap the screen and call him.

              “Sophie, what a nice surprise, I was just thinking about you.” His voice soothes me instantly, the silk wrapping around me like soft hands. “Sophie? What’s wrong?” I take a deep breath and words begin to fall from my mouth.

              “I think she has had a stroke. I don’t know for sure.” I shake my head violently, as if he is sitting right in front of me, an eyewitness to my confusion and shock. “We are on our way to the hospital now,” I whisper.

              “Okay, Beautiful. I will be there as soon as I can.
‘Charlie, turn the car around.’
Ok, Sophie. Everything will be alright, you just stay with your grandmother, I will wrap things up here and get to you as quickly as I can.” The line goes silent for a moment. “And, Sophie, I am glad you called me.”

              “Okay.” A sick relief washes over me at his promise. She lies in front of me, now hooked up with bags and an oxygen mask. Her face is vacant, not like sleeping, but empty. And I have a glimmer of elation growing at the thought of Rhys. Guilt blooms around the shock that still hovers in my heart and I am overcome by the growing waves that threaten to pull me under. Guilt at thinking of Rhys at a time like this, regret for not spending more time with her, fright at being completely unprepared to lose her, although she has been slowly slipping away for years. It all twists around me, squeezing me tightly, an uncomfortable embrace that I become numb to. As the ambulance pulls into the emergency drive, I feel my shoulders fall and I just turn it all off. Letting it all trail behind me, I follow the gurney out of the back of the van and down the icy green corridors, numb. After an hour of gentle interrogation by the admitting nurse, and my scribbled signature on an endless stack of papers, she dismisses me to the waiting room while the doctors are in with my grandmother. Wandering down the quietly morbid hallways, I decide I cannot be left to my own mind. I quickly type a text to Olivia, asking about their trip, wanting something, anything to distract me, to take my mind off of where I am.

             
Hey Liv! How is the Honeymoon? Where are you two?

              We are in the South of France! Everything is so beautiful ,Sophie, but we leave in two days. Back to reality. How is everything going?

I debate quickly whether I will tell her.

              I am at the hospital, Lola had a stroke.

My phone immediately rings.

              “Sophie! Is everything ok? Are you OK? When did this happen?” Her flurry of questions rests on my shoulders for a moment before I can answer.

              “She had been getting worse, but this afternoon I was visiting her and she just, I don’t know, changed. She went rigid, blank. She started shaking and then just stopped.” I take a deep breath and push that memory from my mind, not wanting to remember her like that, writhing on her sad little hospice bed, unable to communicate or help herself.

              “She is wasting away in front of me, Liv. All withered skin and hair, wasting mind and body. She hardly ever opens her eyes and when she does, she doesn’t know me. She doesn’t know who I am. It’s killing me. The doctors don’t think there is anything they can do. I don’t know what I am going to do.”

              “Soph, deep in her heart, she knows you’re there. I’m so sorry I can’t be with you. What can I do?”

              “Nothing, there is nothing anyone can do. I will be fine. I have been through worse, right? I will make it through this. I am sorry I bothered you so late, and on your honeymoon. I just feel so alone right now.”

              “You are not alone, Sophie. I love you, and I will see you as soon as I can. Who can you call? You shouldn’t be alone.”

              “I won’t be alone, Rhys is on his way.” Just the sound of his name is like a bandage. I miss him, but I don’t want to make any assumptions. I shouldn’t expect him to drop everything for me. We are undefined, on unsteady ground. I need to take care of myself, but I am grateful that he said he was coming. I am met with a long moment of silence before I hear her again.

              “Well, things have changed a little since we have been gone.” She clears her throat. “I am glad to hear that things are going well for the two of you. I have to say I am a little surprised, but happy for you.” She is struggling with her words, but I don’t have time to care why.

              “Listen, Liv, I have to get back upstairs. Tell Matthew hello and I’ll see you both soon.”

              “I love you, Sophie!”

              “I love you, too.”

              I slip my fancy new phone, compliments of Rhys, into my pocket and head towards the elevator to take me back up to the ICU. It is torture sitting in that little room, watching a machine breathe for her. Multiple tones, alarms and incessant beeping pollute the air with stagnant noise. The nurses shuffle in and out, checking vitals, always offering me pity-filled smiles as they quietly pad in and out of the sterile little room. The green walls are starting to mess with my vision. Everything I look at is cast in a sickly light. I close my eyes for a moment and try to block out all the noise and all the smells of disinfectant, hand sanitizer, cold metal and new plastic. This hospital has hijacked every last sense I have, twisting me into a nervous, anxious, teary puddle of mush. I wrap my arms around myself for a little comfort, the only embrace available to me. I let my mind wander to Miami. The warm, heavy air, hot Florida sun, and Rhys’ gleaming crooked grin.

              He is the perfect antidote, even if only temporarily. In his arms, my mind will be nowhere near here. In his arms, my mind is quiet. I didn’t have to pretend. I didn’t have to think. It’s heaven, a silent, familiar heaven. He is all I need in this moment, all I could want. The distraction works briefly and I surrender myself to scorching memories that pulse through my body, flames trickling through my veins as the thought of his deft hands and soft mouth invade my grief addled mind. I can almost feel his strong arms wrapped around me as I think of him storming back into my life just days ago, declaring himself so openly. Everything was different in that moment. He was so raw, and almost convincing when he refused to say goodbye two days ago. I drift on the thought of his inscrutable face, the look in his sparkling, worry-filled eyes. He was so adamant about not saying goodbye, and here I am, waiting for him to return and nurse my breaking heart.

              I am startled awake by a symphony of alarms, shouting, piercing the silent night. Nurses rush into the room and I shuffle out of the way, dazed.

              “There is a DNR!” I blink and desperately wipe the sleep from my eyes. Every machine in the room is going off. The heart monitor pierces with a flat line. The ventilator screams, the pump noticeably still, unmoving. My heart leaps into my throat as I watch the nurses. They move seamlessly, unplugging machines and resetting alarms. In their purple scrubs, the oldest and most senior among them carefully removes my grandmother’s IV and the oxygen monitor that is clipped to her delicate fingertip and crosses her hands over her heart.

              “I’m sorry, dear,” she offers with a warm smile and a pat on the hand, before giving orders to the others and calling for the doctor to declare the time of death.

              Anchored to the spot in shock, I fear if I move I will sink to the ground from the waves of grief that are building. Threatening to level me, like a tsunami. It is coming. The alarms blare in my head, and I watch my grandmother. Her heart is still, mine is breaking. The weight of a strong hand on my shoulder comforts me. The smell of citrus and salt water soothes my aching chest. I close my eyes and surrender to the hallucination, happy to be anywhere but the tiny hospital room.

              “Sophie.” A litany whispered from the heavens. The strong hand coaxes me, centers me, and I open my eyes.

              “Rhys?” Reborn by the sound and feel of his name passing my lips, I close my eyes and say it again. “Rhys.” When I open my eyes, he looks forlorn, his face is dark and wary, sleep deprived. He is disheveled in a white long sleeve tee and dark, wrinkled jeans.

              “I’m here, Beautiful.” He opens his arms and waits, offering me a place to disappear, a respite from the outside world. Without a second thought, I accept his offer of safe haven and melt into his strong embrace. He presses me to his heart, his arms wound tightly around me, comforting and protective. His hand fists in my hair, cupping my head so tenderly, it’s almost painful. I surrender to his strength, and tears fall in a deluge. His capable hands allow me to bathe in the grief. I let it wash me clean. I sob into his chest, vaguely aware of his steady heartbeat and strong hands. They hold me tightly and soothe my aching heart. By the time I find my voice, his shirt is soaked, saturated with my hot, salty tears, the planes of his chest just visible behind the damp, translucent fabric. Resting my hands upon his chest, I press my forehead to his heart and listen for the steady beat, something to ground me, keep me centered. I find it and focus on it. Letting it pulse through me, the rhythm of his heart steadies my own. Once I have filled my lungs with the deepest breath I can muster, I look up into his waiting eyes, clear green, soft and concerned. Could he really exist in this moment?

              Everything is crashing in around me. My fractured heart is breaking to pieces in front of him. He is the relief I need, and the painful reminder that will pull me down into the deep. I didn’t want to bother him with my troubles, I didn’t want to assume that he would be here. But, I would be a damn, dirty liar if I tried to convince myself that I wasn’t happy to see him, beyond happy. I can breathe again. As I let the flood gates open, I realize the grief I have been tamping down, hot on the heels of my relief. It all floods through at once; grief over the loss of the last person I love, pain from the broken heart I had tried to bury, happiness from being enveloped in his strong arms, and terror at the thought of being utterly alone.

              “I’m all alone,” my voice cracks, the whisper is so faint, I’m not sure I said it out loud. The pain in his face is all the confirmation I need that he heard me.

              “No,” he insists, kissing me gently on the top of my head. A gentle kiss, before he sits me back down, turning his attention to the nurses that teem around the central desk of the ICU. I watch him with dead eyes, I feel almost nothing. The faint beat of my heart is all I can hear, it floods my ears, drowning out the life sounds of the remaining ICU patients. Rhys passes the nurse his card and speaks to her emphatically. He is quiet, reserved, but his intent and determination radiate throughout the ICU. He is commanding and it is soothing.