I STILL LOVE YOU, BUT...

CHAPTER 13

TRISTAN

With Amanda, something so extraordinary is happening that it scares me.

When I touch her, it feels as if her heart is beating under every inch of her skin. Her eyes speak to me even when she's silent. Her smile takes my breath away. When I make love to her, I am transported to another realm, a world where there is only her, and everything else ceases to exist. Where I feel and touch and live and breathe her. Only her. The rest of the world falls away. Fades into nothingness. The only thing in this sublime universe, the only thing that is real, is her. My Amanda.

My own needs are amplified, and suddenly what I have is not enough, what I am is not enough. I want more, but I don't know what this more is. All I know is that I cannot get enough of her.

Another thing is certain: I'm not going to let that bastard of an ex hurt her. Even to imagine that he's thinking of her and still wants her arouses something primitive in me. I feel like I could kill him, but not in the heat of the moment; I want him to linger, suffer a slow torture, die over and over again, feel every anguish and every torment he has inflicted upon my girl. I want to make him pay for putting that lost, broken look on her face, the quenching of the light, the dimming of the trust in those beautiful, hurt eyes of hers. And I felt sweet satisfaction when I saw his face, the devastation upon it, when he saw Amanda and me together with his own eyes. Or, to be more precise, me, deep inside Amanda. It broke him. The bastard deserved it --- and I intend for it to be the beginning. He hurt Amanda, and I will hurt him back. Tit for tat. It's as simple as that.

All I do these days is think of Amanda, for one reason or another. I think of her while we're making love, when I'm on my own, when I'm working, and actually right this minute. I've done nothing but think of her since the second I woke up. I'm fairly sure all I've done since the first moment I set eyes on her in that red dress in the elevator is think of her. That's an infinite amount of time for someone who usually thinks only about work.

I wake up this morning, and she's gone. I fly into a panic, until I read the text in my phone. I'm going to the store for a bit. Be back in a jiffy.

I rush down and out, looking for her. It's drizzling, and I'm worried she'll get wet.

And just when I'm thinking about her, I see her right there, walking down the wet sidewalk. She's still wearing my T shirt from last night, the one I slid off her with my own hands. She's wearing a pair of soggy sneakers and is hugging herself in a thin red coat and her right hand is gripping a grocery bag. She stands out like a fragile and innocent rose against the cloudy and gloomy backdrop of the pattering rain. Even from here, I can see her teeth are chattering. She looks cold and lost.

I can't stand it any longer. I trudge through the rain furiously, stomping carelessly across the puddles, and scoop her into my arms. Amanda, you have to stop forcing me to think about you all the time. I'm going to pieces around you, I swear I am. I wrap her up in my arms, rubbing her cold arms, blowing on her icy hands, and tow her back, protesting hotly, into the condo block, up the elevator, and march her straight into my penthouse.

While she's in the shower, I rummage around in the fridge and find some eggs. I'm not much of a cook, but I can rustle up an omelette. I just want to warm her up, keep her full and fed. When she appears in the kitchen, I realise I'm head over heels for her because she's in my hideous old sweatshirt with some faded design on the front, my ugliest, thickest socks and my ancient sweatpants, tied up in a knot around her slender waist --- and to me, she looks like an angel, she's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. But that's just how it is with her, I'm a mess around my girl, and I've given up understanding what's happened to the cold, icy jerk that used to be me. She jumbles up my braincells and ties them up in knots. That's the effect she has on me. I've come to terms with it. Yes, I've accepted it. Amanda Barnes is my weakness, and she's the one sole thing in the universe that brings me to my knees. Even when she's yawning and looks sleepy, and her hair is damp and she's not wearing a trace of make-up, I can't stop wanting her. She sits and eats and my heart swells, it fills with satisfaction at the sight of her pouty, pillowy mouth closing over her fork, every swallow of that long, white throat.