Hansel 3(6)

“Oh yeah, and why is that?” I hold my breath, waiting for an answer that will explain how he’s been acting. That will explain how the guy who was so kind to me in hell is now the owner of a sex club, whipping not just one woman but two at a time.

His lips twist, like he’s tasting something bitter. “I’m not who you think I am. I’m not who…you remember.”

“So what?” I tug some air into my lungs, because I’m feeling breathless. I angle myself toward him, trying to catch his eye even though I know he’s aiming his gaze everywhere but me. “Do you think you have to be a certain person for me? News flash, Hansel-Edgar-whoever you are. I’m not the same girl I used to be, either.”

He turns the car right, toward the MGM Grand, and my pulse stutters. “Your driver told me you would take me to the airport. If it didn’t work out, I’d be driven to the airport. Not the MGM Grand. I don’t have a reason to go there.”

“I’ll get your taxi to the airport,” he says tautly.

“Fine!” The heat of tears prickles my eyes. “Try to drop me off and then forget me! But I know you get off on me. I know you’re fucked up, just like I am. You think that I don’t know that? We were both there. We’re both hung up there! How could we not be?”

“We are not the same,” he grits. “So stop pretending that we are.”

“I know we’re not.” My heart beats hard and fast as I remember the sound of his footsteps, disappearing down the hall in front of my door. “I know we’re not,” I say more quietly, “but we’re enough the same. I been trying to find you for years, and now that I have, this is just it? You’re not dropping me off at a damn hotel. I won’t get out.” I slump back against my seat, feeling jittery and weak all at once.

My cheeks must be blood red, because they’re hot. My eyes are leaking. I’m such a loser. He makes me pathetic.

I flick a tear off my left cheek so he doesn’t see it and analyze the road. He’s still heading toward the MGM Grand. He’s really doing this.

I don’t mean anything to him. He doesn’t feel the same way I do.

I pin my most accusing stare on him, and even though he’s looking at the road, I know he has to feel it. “Is it the submissive thing? Like how I wasn’t—”

“You’re fine in bed. Better than fine,” he adds in a surly voice.

Good. And bad. “So you lied back in the room. When you were being mean.” I knew it, but it’s nice to hear him say so.

So pathetic.

His lips flatten as his hand slides around the wheel. He’s turning onto a side street. Maybe turning toward the airport?”

“It’s wrong, the way you’re dumping me like this. When I know you want me. When you know I want you. When we could talk and—”

“Reminisce about the past? Share our funniest home videos?” His voice is low and soft, filled with derision.

An empty feeling fills my stomach, like a cold, inflating balloon. I’m really nothing to him. Nothing but a memory, and, for reasons only known to him, a body he likes to fantasize about.

*

“If we get out of here, you won’t forget me, will you?”

I stroke his knuckles, so much bigger, so much harder-looking than my own. I scoot up a little, moving on my belly, and I press my lips against his hand.

“Do you think that I’d forget you? Never,” I whisper. “You’re like…the center of the universe to me.”

There’s a brief pause. One in which my stomach flip-flops and my fingers on his hand go still. And then his voice, the wonderful rumble that makes me feel all warm.

“I won’t forget you either, Leah.”

*

A runaway tear drops off my chin. I turn my head away from him. “Take me to the airport, at least. Surely you could do that one thing for me,” I say in a thick, embarrassing voice.

I watch him out of the corner of my eye as I sink down into my leather seat. I see a sign for the interstate, and a second later, when we turn onto it, I notice his shoulders deflate as he pushes out a breath.

That’s how much he wants to be rid of me.

I look down at my lap for a few minutes, wondering what I’ll do when we get to the airport. This might be the last time I ever see him. He’s made it clear enough: He doesn’t want anything to do with me. And despite how much I care for him—despite my ridiculous obsession—I’m not going to keep begging. It’s not that I don’t want to. But if I do, and he still dumps me at the airport, I think that it will hurt a hundred times worse.

I allow my eyes to wander his way again. He’s got one hand on the wheel, the other in his lap. He seems to be gripping the wheel tightly. The hand in his lap is balled into a fist. My gaze rolls up to his face. I find his eyes are hard, his face a closed door.