Page 99 of Shiver
Jesse licked his lips, and this time when he pulled his hand away, I let it go. He wasn’t going to run from me. Not now that he knew the whole story. Not when he knew how important he was to me. My lamb would never leave me now.
“You need to let me go, Tor.” Jesse’s voice was soft, like he was trying to soothe an unpredictable animal.
“Let you go?” I said, not understanding why he would want to leave. Didn’t he understand how special this connection was? That he would never find it anywhere but here? “But…no, I can’t let you go, Jesse. Not now that I’ve found you again.”
“You have to—”
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “I can’t. I won’t. You’re just like him. He came back to me through you. This, us—we were meant to be, and you know it.”
“Tor,” Jesse said, and took a step toward me, but I’d lowered my eyes, not wanting him to see my weakness, as denial reared its ugly head and darkness threatened to overtake me again. “I’m not Lee. And I’m not like him, either. This fear…this heartache…I don’t understand it,” he whispered, and when I raised my eyes to his, he landed the final blow. “And I don’t want to. Triceratops.”
28
“Not sure who your admirer is, but they’re definitely trying to make a statement.” The delivery guy from Garden Cottage Florist, the same one I’d seen on a daily basis in the week since I’d left Salvatore’s apartment, handed me another overwhelming vase of freshly cut red and white roses. The symbolism of the colors he’d chosen didn’t surprise me—white for what he saw as my pure innocence, and blood red for murder.
Okay, maybe the red was for passion or love, but all I could think about when I saw them was the confession he’d made. I’d been trying to come to terms with what I knew to be true, but no matter how many times I repeated it, it still didn’t sink in.
Salvatore had killed his lover.
He could’ve killed me. The truth of those words that I had dismissed so easily when they came from Brayden’s mouth couldn’t be disregarded when they had come from the mouth of the man I’d trusted so carelessly.
“Can you please tell the sender that I don’t want them? They’re just going in the trash.”
“Sorry, just doing my job.” As the delivery man headed back to his van, I took one look at the flowers and walked around the building to the dumpster. It was a shame to waste such gorgeous roses, but I couldn’t have them in my apartment, reminding me of Salvatore and his deception. Lifting the lid of the dumpster, I tossed the vase inside, along with all the others. The chocolate baskets would’ve suffered the same fate if Brayden hadn’t insisted on taking them off my hands.
Truth be told, I was surprised that Salvatore hadn’t tried to deliver any of it himself. He’d blown up my phone with calls and texts so much in the first couple of days that I’d had to change my number, but he knew where I lived, where I worked, where Brayden lived. There wasn’t anywhere I could hide if I wanted to, and even though I hadn’t seen him, I still felt his eyes on me. He was there, somewhere, in the shadows or following at a distance, of that I was certain.
But he hadn’t approached, which was proof that using my safe word had been the most effective way of ending our relationship, at least from a physical standpoint. Mentally, I still hadn’t been able to wrap my head around it, not to mention the fact that knowing he was watching gave me the creeps.
I opened the door to my studio. The large box in the center of my coffee table was such an eyesore that I knew I’d have to get rid of it sooner than later. I’d been watching as the Mosasaur replica had been pieced together, and it had been easy to carefully take it apart. I couldn’t keep it, but did I send it back to Salvatore? Sell it? It had to be worth a small fortune, so doing that would help my financial situation and maybe even get me something drivable, but I hadn’t yet been able to stomach getting rid of something so precious.
What a mess, I thought, as I flopped onto my couch and put my head in my hands. Salvatore had to stop this. But given the nature of his unhealthy obsession, I didn’t see him giving up on his attempts to win me back, and so I would continue to trash his gifts and go about my life as usual. What if that wasn’t enough, though? I’d debated whether to get the police involved, but several things stopped me from doing that. First, I didn’t seriously think Salvatore would hurt me. To say that out loud to Brayden sounded ridiculous, even to my ears, after what Tor confessed to me, but what happened with Lee had been an accident, the same as what we’d done. An accident of passion, perhaps, and not one that would ever manifest again. And second, with the kind of influence Salvatore had in Westport, would anyone actually believe me if I thought I was in danger? He could probably pad their pockets and make things go away if he wanted to. I wasn’t stupid. Sure, I’d been blinded by my feelings for the man I thought I knew for weeks now, but I was finally seeing things clearly.