He stands up, slowly. I don't dare look at my mother. My heart is thumping, my head rushing and my fingertips tingling.
I reach out and grab his wrist.
"Don't leave," I tell him, softly.
"Well." My mother's voice is soft and tremulous. "It looks like you've made your choice. Don't come crawling back to me when he finds a skinny woman-"
Adrian slams his hand down on the table. I almost jump out of my skin, but my whole body is throbbing with a heady mixture of gratitude and fear and…
And love.
"Get the fuck out," he growls. "You heard her. GET THE FUCK OUT."
My mother slams the door behind her, but I hardly hear the sound. I'm clawing at Adrian's clothes before I even realize what's happening, then I push him against the wall and I tumble to my knees.
I suck him desperately, urgently, but he pulls me to my feet before I can finish him that way. Kisses me until I'm dizzy with it, then spins me around and presses me against the table. His hand on the middle of my back, he makes me bend at the waist and assume the position. He yanks my panties and pajama pants out of the way.
He knows, without being asked, exactly what I need.
At first it's slow and gentle, light little smacks followed by caresses. Then harder, and harder, until the tears I've been holding back finally come. He spanks me as the tears fall, pooling on my dining room table.
Most men would be afraid to fuck me while I'm crying like this, sobbing, like my soul's being ripped out of me, but Adrian, Adrian knows. He knows the exact moment when I need to feel him inside, stretching me, yet another challenge for my body to accept. Every sensation banishes the guilt and fear and ugliness further from my mind. Every thrust, every jolt of my hips against the hard wood, certain to leave bruises. Every smack of his palm.
He grasps my hair by the root and yanks my head up, and I whimper. But I remember the safe word, and he knows I remember it. He doesn't stop. Doesn't even hesitate.
His every breath is a growl. I can feel all the coiled tension in his body, everything he held back while he listened to my mother's insults. Ever so slowly, ever so gradually, he replaces little fragments of self-hatred with a strange, sharp sense of joy. One for each thrust. One for each heartbeat. One for each breath.
There are so many, so many more, so many little fragments in places I can't even find. But this is a start.
In spite of how it would look to anyone watching, what I feel in his movements, in his touch, is something very simple. But a revolutionary concept, to me.
I matter. I have value. I matter.
Not me, but thinner. Not me, but with better clothes and a better haircut. Not me, but with a flatter stomach. Not me, but with a more advanced degree in something useful. Not me, but with more discipline and self-control.
Just me. Just me, the way I am, every day when I wake up in the morning without even having to try.
I howl his name when I come, rattling the table, and I don't give a fuck about my neighbors.
Afterwards somehow I'm sitting on the floor, crumpled down with my pants more or less pulled back up, panties still slightly askew, and the tears still flowing. Adrian is beside me, pulling me into his lap. Kissing my forehead, murmuring that everything is going to be okay.
I don't quite believe him. But it doesn't matter, really.
Because I've got him.
***
I go to sleep swimming in tears, and I wake up in love with Adrian Risinger.
Maybe I was before. Maybe I always was. I don't know, but it takes me less time to realize it than it takes me to notice that he's gone.
He carried me to bed last night, stripped down and climbed under the covers and held me until I feel asleep. I remember that. I didn't exactly expect him to be here when I woke up, but I still feel a cold disappointment in my chest as I turn on the coffeemaker.
There's no note on the fridge, nothing written in the mirror for the steam of my shower to reveal. He doesn't call or text. I don't know what to make of that, and it frightens me, more than it probably should.
I was a raw, exposed nerve last night. I feel slightly more sensible now, but I'm still in love. It throbs quietly with every heartbeat, so much a part of me that I can't figure out why I ever denied it. And that's how I know it's real.
Adrian's feelings are a bit more of a mystery, but he wouldn't have stuck himself in the middle of a fight between me and my mom - twice - if he didn't care about me.
I manage to pull myself together for work, my heart thumping overtime, afraid of what he's going to say to me when I walk in. My hand shakes so much that I almost spill his coffee, and as soon as I walk in, I'm starting to think maybe I should. Preferably all over his lap.
"Hey, um…" I sit down, slowly. "I missed you this morning."
He glances up at me. Fuck. Are we really doing this again?
"I'm sorry about last night, Meghan," he says. "I obviously overstepped my bounds. It should never have happened. If you want, I can try to apologize to her…but I'm sure she doesn't want to hear from me."
"You didn't," I insist, tears stinging at the corners of my eyes already. Damn it. "She needed to hear it, and I needed to hear it too."
Adrian processes this, silently. I can tell he wants to say a thousand things he's not saying, but he's shut down again - some door inside that he'd cracked open is slammed shut again, and I don't know how or why.
"I got carried away," he says, quietly. "We both got carried away. It's what tends to happen with us, isn't it?" He looks up with a tentative smile, like he's hoping I'm going to let him off the hook.
Not a fucking chance.
"Great," I say, getting to my feet. "Great. Fantastic. So I'm the only one who felt that last night, huh?"
He lets out a long sigh. "I didn't say that."
"So?" I cross my arms. "Well?"
"I just think…just because something feels like a good idea, doesn't mean it is." He's still not looking at me. "I'll hurt you, Meg. If I'm close enough to make you happy, I'm going to end up hurting you. That's just the way it is."
I can't argue with him.
It's been months since he reduced me to crying in the bathroom, hoping no one else walks in.
I hate him.
Except I don't. And really, that's my biggest problem.
***
When I get home, I do the only thing I can think of: I call Izzy.
We exchanged numbers before the conference ended, and she told me to call her if I ever wanted to talk. This obviously qualifies, although I'll have to think fast to avoid spilling the big secret.
I manage to get through a version of the backstory that fits in with the idea of me as the author, and him as the editor. Izzy listens patiently, making encouraging sounds, while I rant.